


Unwanted

by asparagusmama



Series: The ragbag collection of stories of the Doctor and the Master's children [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Absence, Chameleon Arch, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, India, Loneliness, M/M, Marks and Sparks and Clarks, Metebelis 3, Neglect, Possibly Yeti, Spiders, Swinging London, Telepathy, The Doctor and The Master's daughters, The Doctor and the Master's grandchildren, UNIT, UNIT India, little chef, pompous ministers, slides and swings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-19 09:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 39,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14234820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: What do you do when you're a small Time Tot and one father is arrested while the other steals a TARDIS and runs away with your older niece? Who takes care of you?How does it feel to grow up knowing that your Father has become a trickster god, someone who fights evil and injustice and leaves worship and chaos both in his wake whilst your Papa has become a god of war, of death, who leaves nothing but destruction and death in his wake?When Time claims your Father for her Champion and Death takes Papa for hers, how is life at the Academy? Are you safe? Does anyone trust you? Could you write the book on loneliness before you ever begin there?This is the story of the Doctor and the Master's youngest child, left behind...





	1. Prologue

“This was a bad idea, h'm? You're trying to trap me!”

“Hush Doctor, this was my father's idea. Not mine. And we agreed. It's done.”

“Trap us, yes? I was... we have a granddaughter! And nearly a grandson. Their aunt will be younger that them! It's preposterous. Why?”

Koschei leant forward and kissed his husband on the nose. “You agreed. I agreed.” Because my father bribed the Castellan, he did not add. “It's done. She's growing on the loom. Now shield your doubt, she's nearly 4 months old, she will hear us if not sense us.”

“My loom body is wearing thin. I get aches. My physician says it's my corrupted DNA. Nonsense! Man's an idiot! My practice is busy at the moment! So many low level arrests. I'm in no position to look after another child!” the Doctor grumbled, but he was accepting the situation of the distraction and family encouraged chance to save the marriage.

You'll have to, if my plan comes to fruition, the Master thought to himself...


	2. Mary Poppins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papa turns up unexpectedly...

Sanjiandrovanri did not like the dark. She also could not sleep. Father had screamed at her hours ago to shut up and go to bed. He was angry again. He swept his white hair off his face and threw down his data tablets full of the cases he was forced to take as a defence counsel to the Shobogan hooligans. He had to practice as he had her to support. He wanted to see the stars. He told her enough when he was angry.

Then he cried and Sanji ran through the apartment and curled up in bed and counted her breaths. She hugged her teddy bear from Earth and eventually pulled out her favourite book of fairy tales from under her pillow and read them by torch light. She was reading 'The Toclefane, the Vampire and the Other' and feeling pleasantly afraid rather than the terror of her parent crying in front of her.

Suddenly she heard the deeper tones of Papa. She had almost forgotten what he sounded like, it had been months since he had been at their apartment. Father was trying to stop him, but in her mind's eye she could see him sweep her father to one side with a brush of his black encased arm.

“My dear Sanji-anna, I know you are awake,” Papa said from the door. He came in and sat on the end of her bed. “You are well? Father is looking after you? Come on my dear girl,” he said to the bump that was Sanjiandrovanri buried under her covers, pretending to sleep. “I know you are awake.”

“Sorry Papa,” she muttered, wriggling up and siting up to face him.

“Better my dear,” he said gently, taking her tiny hands in her large ones. “Oh my dear girl, Papa must go away for good. I wanted you to know, whatever they say, I love you, you are my dearest girl.” He bent forward and kissed her forehead. “Now, Father says you have not been sleeping. How about I read you your big sisters favourite story. It's an Earth story, called 'Mary Poppins'. Sharn and Rosa loved it so much. Would you like that?”

“Hypatia and Portia,” Sanji corrected, using the names her sisters had used since adulthood, since graduation from the Academy as lawyer and mathematician. Sanjiandrovanri found it hard to imagine them as Time Tots.

“Would you like the story?” he asked, pulling a book from his pocket and showing it to her. She took it and sniffed it, it smelt of her Papa and of something alien. The pages were crisp and something she could not recognise, something off world. The picture showed a woman in a skirt suit and holding an umbrella with a handle of some kind of animal and holding an odd shaped bag.

“Sharn and Rosa always said she was a Time Lady.”

“Why? Humans don't know about us?”

“Ah. Let's see, shall we. Snuggle down with your toys my dear. That's it.” He opened the book with a crack of the spine and began...


	3. Jelly babies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father is more mysterious, confusing, and infuriating, than ever!

Sanjiandrovanri slept late. She got up and dressed herself, her nurse had quit after a row with Father three months ago and there was no sign of Father. She found her way to the kitchen where he was sitting at the table with a cold cup of tea and a bowl of horrible brightly coloured sweets in front of him. The news service screen was hovering over the table, frozen. There seemed to be a picture of Papa, but as she was only three and a half, and couldn't read the tiny print on the news scroll, so she had no idea why Papa was on the news. She climbed up onto a breakfast stool.

“Father?”

“H'm? Hum? Yes?”

“I think I should be at Kindergarten.”

“Yes. Probably. Breakfast, yes, my dear.”

“Yes please. Toast and fruit salad please,” she said as he pushed the bowl of jelly babies over the table to her. She looked at it with dismay. “That is not breakfast. The Lady Hoolie says a growing Time Tot needs proper nutritious forms of sugar. That is refined sugar. Alien refined sugar,” she added, as she knew the strange shaped sweets came from Earth. “They have boiled animal bones in them!” she added, as she had taken some in for play-chemistry the other week.

Her Father looked at her as if he was really seeing her for the first time that day. “Sanjiandrovanri, good morning my dear. Tea? One lump or two? Sugar no doubt?”

“I'm three. The Lady Hoolie says I should drink milk for my growing bones.”

“Enough! Screen off!” he snapped at House. “I've had enough of the Lady Hoolie and what she thinks! And Coordinator Aris, always threatening the Capitol's Children's Coordinator. Eat what is there if you are hungry, if not, get what you need, and I'll take you to Kindergarten.”

Sanjiandrovanri jumped down and ran up to her room and grabbed her bag, and feeling insecure, stuffed in her yellow teddy bear and white toy dog and her favourite book of nursery tales, and then waited at the door. 

Her father took ages, and she thought he might be wiping his eyes of tears as he approached. She pretended she hadn't noticed. His crying was frightening. She wanted to ask if she dreamt Papa visiting, but was too afraid to.

At the entrance of the Capitol Kindergarten, Father squatted down and took her by the shoulders, looking deeply into her eyes. “Never doubt how deeply I care my dear daughter. Now, Father maybe a little late today. I want you to wait here at home-time until I... or someone... comes.” He pulled her into a tight hug and showered her with kisses and tears and then stood, and scooted her into Kindergarten. Behind her she was sure she heard her niece,

“Grandfather, I knew you would come late. Mother says to leave you, but...”

“Sanjiandrovanri,” Aris said, towering over her, blocking her eavesdropping. Why was Susan at her Kindergarten and not at the Academy?

“Coordinator,” she said, dropping a curtsey.

“Where is you father? No doubt he chose to be late to avoid stares. I can understand that, but he should escort you inside. Come now, let's take you to Lady Hoolie's class my dear one.”

Why was Aris being kind? She was terrified.


	4. Abandoned

After an hour after home time she sat down on the walkway outside the entrance to the Kindergarten. Parents and nurses had all passed her in the gateway, muttering under their breath and studiously not looking at her, to the point it was obviously they wanted to stare but that would be a breach of propriety. 

Eventually Lady Hoolie brought her in and gave her milk and fruit and biscuits and a colouring-in book. It was one with endless repeating patterns of Vortex. It was full of maths if you could find the right patterns to colour. Hoolie patted her head and told her to wait.

“Where is Father?” she asked, not afraid, as he said he might be late.

She was not afraid!

After a while, Hoolie returned with Aris, and they told her her sister Hypatia was on her way. No one told her anything else.


	5. Where is Susan?

Over the evening Sanjiandrovanri clung more and more to her soft toys, her favourite book, and the colouring-in one the Lady Hoolie had given her, like a talisman against the on-coming storm that raged above her head and probably out in the universe beyond the transduction barrier, if the feeling in the pit of her stomach was anything to go by.

She was in Hypatia's apartments in Prydonia. Portia had arrived from Arcadia, along with her husband and their baby son and his nurse. Hypatia's husband had stormed out some time ago to look for Susan, and now there was also a Chancellery Guard Coordinator and the Castellan himself, along with a couple of guards outside the door of her sister and brother-in-law's apartements. For a reason she could not understand, also a Time Lord who was the Coordinator for the Museum of Temporal Antiquities was also there, hovering in the living quarters. She wasn't quite sure, but she thought that the whole family might be under arrest.

Because by now she knew that Papa had been arrested and was to be sentenced for sedition, treason, murder of several Gallifreyans and several thousands of aliens. She also realised that Father had stolen an ancient Type 40 TT Capsule and disappeared. 

And now Susan didn't appear to be at the Academy.

Or anywhere on Gallifrey...

Hours later Hypatia said sternly to the Children's Coordinator, “Well, I'm not taking her. Poor exchange for my own cherished daughter, if you ask me.”

“I am busy and my nurse has enough with my own son,” Portia responded equally hotly.

“Be sensible Ladies, where can she go? Can you not even take her temporally? Until your Uncle returns to Gallifrey? Lungbarrow has buried itself and the great House of Oakdown has disowned your other parent and his progeny and he is about to be expunged from the records. If they take her on they will have nothing but dishonour and shame.”

There being no such thing as an orphanage or children's home on Gallifrey, Sanjiandrovanri spent a night curled up on a chair in the children's department, dreaming of being adopted by the Lady Hoolie.


	6. Ushas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A home, of sorts...

Sanjiandrovanri awoke to an imperious voice.

“I knew no good would come to either of them. Insane, the both of them. No doubt the loom matrix couldn't weave out the insanity either. However, I am both Lords oldest friend, and I understand her older sisters will not have her.”

Sanjiandrovanri uncurled and stretched and looked up with sleepy eyes. “Ushas?” she asked.

“Yes. Bother! Your fathers are a nuisance. Selfish and immature and idiotic. Never doubt that. Do you like chemistry child?”

“It's alright. I prefer legends and tales. I want to be a historian.”

“Why? We are so static, whatever changes child?”

Everything, Sanjiandrovanri could have said. Everything in one day.

“Will you be good? If you come live with me? I will engage a nurse and expect you to be obedient and diligent with her or him and the Kindergarten.”

Ushas lived in the Capitol, so she would still be in Lady Hoolie's class. She nodded.

“Is this how young Time Ladies behave?” prompted the Children's Coordinator.

Sanjiandrovanri slipped off the chair and stood in front of Ushas and curtsied. “Thank you for giving me a home,” she said.

And home she had, until Ushas started experimenting with the mice. They grew so big they destroyed a quarter of the Capitol and ate the President's pet cat. The President himself explained to her she must pretend there had been Earthquakes and never mention Ushas again. Ushas was exiled, doomed to roam time and space for eternity, denied even the Matrix at death. 

Out there, where Father was...


	7. Uncle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some family...

“I suppose,” he said in his aristocratic baritone, looking down his patrician nose at his niece, “I can take a sabbatical from my Collection for a few years. How long until you begin the Academy my dear?”

“Two years Uncle Braxiatel.”

“Jolly good.” He turned to the Coordinator. “Will the Academy take at seven in exceptional circumstances?”

“I'm afraid not Braxiatel.”

“No matter? Are you packed child?”

Packing meant Teddy, Doggie, 'The Worshipful Tales of Gallifrey for Children' and 'Colour In The Vortex: Maths for Time Tots'. Clothes and food would be provided no doubt.


	8. Shada

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papa escapes on the coat tails of another...

“Are you awake my dear?” Braxiatel said quietly one night in his young niece's ear. She was eight and one term away from the Academy.

“Yes,” she replied sleepily, wriggling out of her tightly bound sleeping quilts and holding her toys tightly. What was happening now?

“Good. Be quiet and get dressed quickly. Pack anything important and come with me. Don't ask anything. Don't speak. I'm trusting you to be brave Sanji-anna dear.”

Naturally her toys and books were packed, along with some snacks and drink. The hunger of the day Papa was arrested and Father ran away stayed with her always, more than anything else about that day. Only Lady Hoolie had fed her in two days.

They moved furtively through the night time walkways of the Capitol, hiding from Chancellery Guards or any late night lowly cleaning bots and Shobogans. Sanji wondered briefly if this was how it was for her father. They eventually came to a TT Capsule parking bay and were soon in her uncle's capsule. He locked the door and tapped on the console. Something fell from the high domed ceiling.

Sanji looked about her. He had wiped out the standard white, clean, roundels settings to create something of mahogany and red velvet, the walls lined with books, giving the impression of an ancient library intruded with a mushroom shaped console in the middle.

Her uncle interrupted her examination of his capsule. She had been in one, once, as a field trip. It had been rather boring. She had distracted herself with thinking of her Father and Susan living in a space white and empty, all clean and tidy, and couldn't imagine it. Susan had been as chaotic as Father, she remembered, driving neat and organised Hypatia to distraction. Naturally the class of Time Tots hadn't gone anywhere, that would not happen until several years at the Academy. Which was fine by her, she had no intention of going anywhere.

“Your Papa has escaped,” Braxiatel said boldly.

For a moment, Sanji's hearts leapt. Papa. He loved her. He would come for her.

And then she remembered. He was insane. A killer. A power mad evil genius who wished to destroy Gallifrey and become its dictator, a creature who killed non-Gallifeyans like a meat eating species killed their food animals. He wasn't her Papa, he wasn't even Koschei. He was the Master.

She felt sick to the stomach.

“We must hide you my dear. He may come back for you.”

“He never said so,” she offered. No, Father said he would though. But he never has.

Braxiatel picked up the item that had descended from the ceiling. He pulled out a pocket watch and inserted it into a panel of the console, and then approached her with a head attachment.

“We will hide you on Earth...”

Earth? Where The Fabled And Dead Human Grandmother came from?

“And I'm so sorry my dear,” he was saying as he put the silver and validium attachment on her head.

“Sorry Uncle? Why sorry?”

“This is going to hurt. A lot,” he said, as he flipped a switch on the console.

Sanjiandrovanri screamed.

A while later, Braxietel scooped up the human infant from amongst the folds of a Gallifreyan child's robes.


	9. Watched over

Braxiatel knew he should leave immediately, but he kept a silent and distant watch over her in the early years, from when he left her.

 

With half-moon specs and a white coat over his immaculate suit he passed by without question among all the female midwives in the institution that, with no sense of irony, was called 'The Shrubbery'. A clean and well run 1960s Earth maternity home. The now human infant slept in his black leather doctor's bag.

 

He found the room he was looking for by the sounds of a female human sobbing. The midwife in attendance was sat on the bed, hugging the young woman, the other nurse cleaning the blood and other matter, disposing of the placenta, which was not something a loom-baby needed. Natural reproduction was messy indeed. The stillborn child was placed on a shelf by the window. How disrespectful, he felt. But he knew little of the beliefs of the time and planet concerning death rituals. He quickly swapped the infants, and then picked up his niece.

 

“Quick! Nurse! She's alive.”

 

The mother began to weep in relief and hysteria, the midwives too, close to tears, came up to him.

 

“Who are you doctor?” one asked.

 

He smiled at the irony of being called 'doctor', before answering. “Oh, I was never here. I am researching paediatric and infant CPR and resuss. I was just passing and thought I would try... and success. Now, s'sh. Please.”

 

The midwife took the human Sanjiandrovanri and passed her to her new human mother, who sat up and cradled her as if she was a gift from God. She smiled at him. She was so young, not yet out of her teens, but humans of this era married ridiculously young, even for such a mayfly species. But he knew he had chosen well from what this girl and her husband would achieve and do for their communities in the future. She was freckled and ginger and quite sweaty, and also squinting, unable to focus, the midwives having removed her glasses. That was useful, in case he needed to check up on her again. He had no intention to, of course, as he wanted to keep his niece as safe as possible from the Master.

 

“Please, may I give her a gift. For her future. She is the first child I used my new resuss technique on, I'm not really allowed to practice it yet. But we do know it works, don't we?” He pulled out an ornate pocket watch – containing all that Sanjiandrovanri was now in essence - and handed it to the mother. “Keep it safe for her, always, please.”

 

The young woman fingered the watch in her hands and smiled again, looking down at 'her' daughter. “I will. Thank you Dr...?”

 

“Oh. I was never here,” he repeated, and slipped out.

 

 

*

 

He could not keep away for a while. They called her Cassandra. Cassandra Jones. They lived in a caravan behind a road leading to a small, pretty village in a valley in the Chiltern Hills. The parents were so young, but also so involved in local politics, setting up a group to welcome the New Commonwealth immigrants to the town and to combat racism. They were also Young Socialists within the Labour Party and were part of a deputation to meet the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who was on the verge of expelling the youth en mass for being to radical and socialist and not liking his betrayal with his 'White Heat of Technology'. The infant went too, sitting on her mother's lap on the terrace of the House of Commons, at the centre of power already as an exile, like her father, Braxiatel thought with bitter irony. He was following his brother's exploits with trepidation and horror tinged with admiration.

 

For the most part, though, the young mother was left behind, and was struggling, so far from everything, without a car. The young baby Sanjiandrovanri – or Cassandra Jones – seemed happy enough, lying on her back in her pram looking a the sunlight through the trees and listening to the birds,either outside the caravan or when she was pushed the miles along the roads for the mother to get to the shops or a bus into the town. The father wasn't really coping with fatherhood at a young age, and often stayed out drinking with his political or work colleagues and missed the last bus home.

 

This would not do at all. They had put themselves on the list for a council house but the council had put them to the bottom as a rickety old caravan from the 1950s was deemed 'owning your own home'. Braxiatel materialized one night into the offices and bumped them up to the top.

 

They moved into a flat in the large town, high on one of its hills, a week later. Their relationship improved soon after. The mother made friends and attended groups and the father decided to start up his own business. It failed, but he ended up with a far better paid job, as a milkman, which meant his early starts gave him afternoons to bond with 'his' daughter. She was very much loved as an infant.

 

When she was two, the young woman who was her 'mother' became pregnant again, and as a reward, Braxiatel managed to slip the right medications, decades ahead, into her free orange juice and cod liver oil, to prevent the same situation occurring which had led to the first infant's death.

 

Satisfied that Sanjiandrovanri in human form was well-loved and protected and completely invisible to her mad and dangerous parent, the Master, Braxiatel went back to his research and his Collection. The dead child, he gave over to the friars in seventeenth century Venice, where he was beginning his human collection of banned books, to give a proper funeral ritual. They assumed it to be from some paramour or maid. He did not contradict. What was the point? They didn't judge him, human aristocrat that they supposed him to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following chapters are based on the story I wrote as a very little girl, cleaned and tightened up somewhat with later canon added!


	10. I don't belong here

Cassandra Jones curled up under her blankets and sheets and tried not to shake. She hated the dark. Daddy loved her, she knew, but he had this thing about children needing 12 hours sleep at night, and yet again he and Mum had rowed over the lights. He had just come in and took away her torch she had been using to read Famous Five by under the blankets. She counted up to a hundred and back down again and again, trying out the alphabet for variation, A to Zed, Zed back down to A. It was Friday night, and there was no school in the morning. School was mostly good, some of the boys picked on her sometimes at playtime, but mostly they left the girls alone. Sometimes the other girls wanted to let her play because she made up the best make believe, but other times they played complex games with cats cradle, skipping, and a tennis ball in an old tight, which they banged against the wall under and over their legs. Or they did handstands against the wall. Cassandra was rubbish at all that. Sometimes she thought she was born clumsy. On bad days, sure, the playground bullies Mandy and Joanna would notice her sitting on the path or in the long grass reading a book, which was grounds for teasing at being laughed at. If she was lucky one of the teachers let her talk to them about books.

 

But tomorrow was Saturday, which meant visiting Granny and Grandad, and Grandad would no doubt take her out on one of his special car trips to a play park in a country village. If it was just the swings and an ice cream, it might have been fun. For some other girl. A girl who wasn't special.

 

Mum said they were coming to Sunday lunch too, that meant an extra afternoon of being special and probably roast port, which made her sick. Mum pretended she wasn't a vegetarian to Granny and Grandad, like she was still scared of her parents even though she was a grown up.

 

Sometimes Cassandra felt she didn't belong here, in this new council estate with all those children with the same house, but with parents who weren't like hers, as her parents didn't work in the furniture factory or drive a lorry full or furniture, or clean the factories or work in a shop. No, they ran the tenants association, the local playgroup, were a town councillor, and a country councillor and a JP. She supposed she was very proud of them, but at the same time, it meant they were busy a lot these days and Granny and Grandad babysat a lot. She liked it better when her Aunties babysat. They were Daddy's sisters.

 

Sometimes Cassandra told herself stories in the dark when she couldn't sleep. She was friends with the Famous Five, or she was like Kizzy in the Diddakoi and lived in a gypsy wagon and travelled the countryside. Other times she went on adventures with Professor X.

 

And sometimes she really believed she didn't belong. She was a fairy changeling and belonged in the wood beyond the estate or she was an alien princess, hidden with these kind humans but one day her parents would come for her and when they found out what her Grandad did, they would punish him...

 

Dolly Daydream, he teased her in front of her family. Nelly Know it all, because she always got 10 out of 10 in spelling and mental maths. Lizzy Dripping Mum said, but that was alright, as that was a TV show and she could see she might be like her. Except she didn't have a friend who was a witch, although sometimes she imagined so hard in the wood she could see the fairies who were her real family or see the space ship land come to take her away.

 

100, 99, 98...

 

She was very scared tonight. Two days in a row of being special...

 

Cassandra Jones peeled back the bed-covers and could see a tiny bit, her eyes adjusted to the dark and the street light by her window gave enough light now to creep out and cross the bedroom floor to climb up and sit in the window seat, curtains pulled tight around her.

 

The wood to her left was dark and creepy, but it did not scare her. Somewhere deep in it a fox barked. A hedgehog snuffled on the grass of the front lawn and a couple of bats were circling the light. Sometimes the lamp post just in front of the huge woodland looked like the gateway to Narnia. But not today. Today stories, those from books or her own imagination, could not stop the tummy ache or coldness of real dark fear of the weekend.

 

She looked up. Behind the opposite row of identical houses was a huge tower, the TV mast, massive, broadcasting to several counties.

 

She squinted. In the dark a man was climbing the tower. He kept stopping and seemed to be attaching stuff to the metal struts as he went higher and higher.

 

What would the Famous Five do? What would Professor X do?

 

They would jolly well investigate.

 

Men climbing TV Masts were not frightening in the least!


	11. The Master

Cassandra Jones quickly pulled on her jeans and jersey and then slipped out through the porch in the front door, where they took the dog for a walk. He wanted to come too, and to stop him barking, she agreed, pulling on her wellies and anorak and unlocking the door silently, putting the door key into he pocket.

 

The best approach seemed to be to go down to the wood and then come back up opposite the gates to the fences off TV mast. Which she did, hiding in the bushes on the edge of the wood, where it came up to the service drive at the back of the houses and the TV mast area.

 

The man jumped over the fence, landing as silently as a cat. He was dressed in a posh suit, hardly the clothes you would expect a sneak criminal to wear when climbing up the property of the BBC and ITV and the government. He looked more like one of those villains in TV programmes who drank brandy and smoked cigars and had half dressed women draped over them.

 

Pepe, the black lab cross, bounded happily up to the man, who hissed, and he ran away. Pepe was normally a fearless dog, so this should have made Cassandra turn around, but instead she stepped out of the dark and under a street light. Something about this man made her feel safe, like she recognised him, like this was the alien king from her pretend games come to take her home.

 

Perhaps her grandad was right, and she was mad after all?

 

“Papa?”

 

The man had been staring at her, as if deciding whether to break her neck or merely strangle her, when she spoke, her mouth by-passing her brain.

 

She was a crazy, no good, weirdo, that was what she was!

 

He took a step forward and grabbed her chin, making her look up, looking deep into her eyes.

 

“Human?” he said.

 

“Let me go! Or I'll scream!”

 

He put one gloved hand over her mouth as he put his finger to his lips. “S'sh. You will look into my eyes child. You will go home and sleep and forget. I am the Master and you will obey me.”

 

“I won't sleep! I never sleep! And you are not my master, so there!”

 

The man raised his hand angrily, as if to slap her...

 

_...“Get out! This is over! You will never raise your hand to our child again! Hit me all you want, yes! But not this. No no no! Out out out!!!!”_

 

“ _Papa! Don't go! Don't make him go Father! I'm sorry Papa! Sorry!”..._

 

...“Sorry Papa!”

 

“Why do you...? Sanjiandrovanri? Is that you? But you are human?”

 

“My name is Cassandra Jones and I demand to know what you were doing up there!” she shouted, tipping her head up.

 

“Go back to your house human child. I won't hurt you.”

 

“But...?”

 

“Now child, before I change my mind.”

 

And with that, he swept past her and strode off into the darkness of the wood.

 

 

*

 

 

He felt like a dream that morning. Of course, she couldn't help blurting out what she had seen, and everyone laughed, her grandad leading the laughter, calling her dolly daydream again, telling her to live in the real world.

 

The world where she was his special granddaughter? No thank you!!!

 

It was dark when they got home from their trip shopping and going out for lunch with her grandparents, then her special trip out, and then tea made by granny that they all had to praise, even if the brandy snaps piped with whipped cream turned to ashes in her throat.

 

Everyone talked over Professor X, of course, and told her off for being rude wanting them to shut up! Of course, when her Dad and brother had wanted the football results an hour before everyone had been silent as mice. Girls had no respect, it was horrible being a girl!

 

 

 

*

 

 

He was there again that night, attaching things to the strange discs he had put up the night before. This time she left the dog and waited at the gate.

 

“What are you doing? Sending a signal? Are you alien? Are you trying to get home? Take me with you!”

 

“You are an intelligent and curious child. Did no one tell you curiosity killed the cat?”

 

“I'm not normally so brave,” Cassandra replied sadly.

 

He looked down at her. He had a beard, like Daddy, except his didn't cover his cheeks, and had neat stripes of grey either side of his mouth. He removed his glove and touched her temple.

 

“Oh my dear, humans can be so evil. To answer your question, you must answer one of mine. Fair is fair.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Do you have a watch my dear? A very old watch, an old-fashioned man's pocket watch, with ornate patterns on it?”

 

“How do you know that!? Yes, the doctor who saved my life when I was a baby gave me one. It was a very strange thing to give and I'm not allowed to play with it.”

 

“The Doctor?”

 

“Who saved my life the day I was born. I was dead. The nurses put my body to one side. And then this doctor came in and I was alive. He explained something scientific but my Mum didn't understand. She said it was a miracle.”

 

“I see.”

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Calling to something my dear. We have unfinished business. It is called the Nestene Consciousness, but that will mean nothing to you. Go home now.”

 

“Will I see you again?”

 

“I don't know. I hope so. Run along now Sanji-anna.”

 

The name echoed in her head as she did as she was told and ran home. She slept with no fear or nightmare and awoke to the vile smell of roasting pork and boiling cabbage. Retching with the smell, she stumbled out of bed and into her window seat, and opened her window wide open. Squirrels were chattering underneath her room, stealing the bird food from the bird feeders and a dark black crow took off and flew in an arc over the house towards the mast. She could see clearly in the daylight what he had put on – tiny white discs and rectangles, from half way up the tower to the top. Alien radio transmitters, she guessed. Uplink sat phone boosters, she thought happily, thinking she was making the phrase up.

 

The smell was getting worse, so she got dressed, and grabbing a banana, told her Mum she was going out to play, and ran out into the wood. She climbed her favourite tree and lay in its branches, looking at the sky, when she heard the sirens. Then she heard her Mum calling.

 

 

*

 

 

A body had been found under the TV mast, and another in the wood. Police taped off bits of the wood and stood guard. Her parents cancelled her grandparents and threw out the pork and put in a nut loaf from the freezer in the oven instead, and they sat down to play monopoly. Her little brother won, he always did. The way he hoarded sweets and pocket money Daddy used to tease and say he would grow up to be an accountant!

 

They watched the family drama and had baths and went to bed early. Cassandra sat in the window all night after she heard her parents go to bed, but she didn't see him. Not until much later in the morning. What she did see was the army trucks arrive. They dismissed the policemen and set up a base under the TV mast, sending the people who lived in the immediate houses that surrounded it away, driving them off in buses. She could hear the odd phrase floating up in the still spring air of some of the people grumbling and complaining.

 

A man began to climb the tower, a man even less dressed for climbing that the other one, his red lined cape flapping violently in the breeze as he climbed higher and higher, stopping at each disc and rectangle and doing something to them by waving what looked like a magic wand over them. In his flapping cape over his purple velvet jacket he could have been a wizard!

 

She rushed downstairs shouting, “The Army is here!”

 

“I know,” her Mum replied from the kitchen. “School has been cancelled.”

 

“Can I go and look?” she asked.

 

“Breakfast first.”

 

Cassandra wolfed down rice krispies and orange juice and then quickly dressed in jeans and jumper and her red anorak and wellies and rushed out. The army were not over as far as their block and she ran into the wood and skirted around and stood as near as she could to the fencing to the mast. There were trucks and jeeps and khaki tents and lots and lots of soldiers.

 

The man said he was called the Master and he had obviously killed the two men. He had said something about contacting something called the Nestene Consciousness. She should tell them she had seen him and knew what the things on the TV mast were for. She stepped forward.

 

“Woah. Sorry little girl. This is out of bounds. You ought to go home, it's not safe to be near here.”

 

“I saw the man. I know what the white things are for.”

 

The soldier smiled and patted her head. “On yer bike little girl. We're doing important work here.”

 

Cassandra Jones stamped her foot in annoyance. No one respected or believed girls. It was so unfair! She would show them, she would find them. She turned tail and stormed further into the wood.

 

She turned as she heard the crack of wood under running footsteps, and saw a blur of black as a man ran through the undergrowth, being chased by two soldiers. An arm grabbed her just as there was a loud crack. It was minutes later before she realised a soldier had fired his gun at her. Or at the Master, but she was very near. The gun sounded nothing like the pinging noise on cops shows. Then they sounded silly and comic. The sudden and blunt crack of a real gun was terrifying.

 

She thought all that while she was also trying to take on board that the man, this Master, was covering her with his body in the bracken, his hand over her mouth.

 

“He must have gone this way,” she heard a soldier shout, and then booted feet rushed past, the other side of a large holly-bush.

 

The Master sat up and climbed off her, clutching his arm, orange-red blood was seeping out between his fingers.

 

“You've been shot!” she cried.

 

“It was nearly you, foolish child. You won't regenerate in your present condition. And child, why were you going to betray me?”

 

“They wouldn't believe me!” she huffed angrily. “Were they shooting at me?”

 

“Trigger happy quixotic fools. Yes.”

 

“You are bleeding.”

 

“An astute observation. I need somewhere to lie low and attend to my arm.”

 

Cassandra smiled widely. “Come with me,” she said.

 

“Why, pray tell, you are merely a child?”

 

“I play in these woods alone all the time. My fairy grotto -” she looked at his sceptical face and added, “I call it that. It's off all the paths. It's down a steep slope of bracken, heather, and ferns and baby trees. Four huge oaks and beeches have fallen in storms to make a square, and there are hollow holly bushes in-between. No one knows but me. I go there when I am unhappy.”

 

“Lead on.”

 

The Master was nimble and as sure-footed as a mountain goat, better at climbing than any adult she knew. Soon they were in the clearing, hidden by foliage. He sat on a small broken branch and took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeve, examining the damage. It was awful, blood and gore and bruising. Somewhere inside was a bullet.

 

“Girl – what do they call you?”

 

“Cassandra Jones.”

 

“Well, Cassandra, can you do exactly as I say?”

 

“Yes Master.”

 

“I think I prefer Papa,” he muttered through his teeth. His face was now a rictus of pain.

 

“Okay,” she said, trying to smile, but she felt very confused. He was not her papa, Daddy was her father. She was just a normal human girl who pretended to be an alien princess hidden with normal human parents. “Are you a King? Or a Prince?” she blurted out.

 

“I am the Master. Isn't that enough? Now, in my pocket is a sharp knife. That's it, the left one. Give it to me. I need you to untuck my shirt and hold it taut, I will tear a piece to make a bandage. Good girl, tightly now. Now hold it for me and look away.”

 

She looked away. She rather thought he was going to cut out the bullet. When he gasped, she knew he had.

 

“Now, bandage it for me, as tight as you are able. Good girl.”

 

After he had done so, he sat back, sighing and closing his eyes. I need sustenance and rest to recover from this. You are sure no one knows of this place?”

 

“Certain. I come here a lot. Some times you hear people dog walking down there,” she pointing down the steep incline, almost vertical, beech trees grey out of the chalky soil, and the path below was completely hidden. “No one has ever found me.”

 

“Could you go home and fetch me some food and drink, do you think? And get back here? Without being seen?”

 

“Yes. No one pays any attention to a girl. I told you.” She turned to start the steep climb out.

 

“Wait girl.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Bring the watch we spoke of. It's important. You wanted to come with me, didn't you?”

 

“I... I don't know.” She loved Daddy and Mum, her brother and her dog, and school, and her books and toys. It was just her grandparents who made her so small and afraid and unhappy.

 

“Bring the watch, and then you can decide.” As she climbed, she thought she heard him add, “Sanjiandrovanri my daughter,” but it could have been her imagination.


	12. Am I human? Or am I Time Lady?

When Cassandra got back home her Mum and brother were building a train track on the living room floor. Her Dad was reading the newspaper with his earphones on listening to his favourite records.

 

“All the other boys are playing football on the green,” she said to her brother.

 

He leapt to his feet, as she knew he would. He stopped at the door. “Can I go out and play Mum?”

 

“As long as you stay on the green with the other boys and don't bother the soldiers. You've not been watching them all this time, have you Cassie?”

 

“Oh no, it was boring. I've been in the wood, reading. I came back for a snack and a drink. Can I have some squash and a biscuit and an apple please.”

 

Everyone in the family worried, or pretended to in the case of her grandparents she was sure, about how thin she was and how she never ate. She knew the answer would be yes.

 

“Of course you can. Tea is at four, be back by then. And don't get in the soldiers way. If they've closed the school and evacuated the houses up to Telford Way, can I get to the shops?”

 

“That end of the road is all blocked with army people. But the way up to the village is still all right.”

 

“I'm going to have to get something in for tea. If I have to go up to the village common stores I will take Pepe out for a walk, and kill two birds with one stone. No more than two biscuits mind.”

 

“Of course not Mum,” Cassandra replied, crossing her fingers behind her back.

 

She went to the bathroom, then, sure her Daddy was plugged into his music still, and her Mum out with the dog, her brother playing football on the green, sneaked into her parents bedroom and, standing on the dressing table stool, took down the old biscuit tin on the top of the wardrobe. Inside was her birth certificate, a fuzzy black and white photo of her as a newborn baby, a wrist band that her Mum was given in the maternity home with her name, and a tiny one for her ankle that said Baby Jones, and a rather strange implement, which they had put on her cord to make a belly button.

 

Was she meant to have a belly button? She wasn't sure that she had seen one when she helped the Master untuck his shirt to make a bandage.

 

Also, in the box, was the watch the doctor had given her. It looked battered and old to her, nothing special, but she tucked it into her jeans pocket, then went to her own bedroom and emptied her school bag out. She headed for the door, then went back, and put in her battered teddy bear Daddy called Tatty Bear, and her favourite Famous Five books, along with the Narnia books. It made it heavy, but she didn't care. Then, in case, she added two pairs of knickers and some socks and a vest and went to the bathroom,where she put in her toothbrush and the tipped out the contents of the medicine chest.

 

In the kitchen, she mostly emptied the bottle of lemon squash and topped it up with water, put in a packet of digestives and one of party rings (didn't Mum say no more than two? Two packets was the same thing, sort of, wasn't it?) and tipped in the fruit bowl.

 

It was so heavy, she had to take out the Narnia books and half the Famous Five, and then quickly ran out of the garden and back into the wood.

 

 

*

 

“Alright girly,” the same sentry called out.

 

“Is it all right to play in this bit of the woods?” she demanded, knowing she sounded a bit rude to a grown-up, but not caring at all.

 

“Sorry. The Woods are now completely out of bounds little missy.”

 

Oh poo! That was a problem. Still Cassandra knew the housing estate, the first woods and the second, as the local children called them, in reality Greater and Lesser Tinkers Wood, National Trust property, part of the Hughenden Manor, like the back of her hand, as the saying went. Although she thought she probably knew the housing estate, village, and woods, and common land better, she played in them alone all the time, and hadn't ever really looked closely at her hand! All were connected in one way altogether, the edge of the estate, the old village houses, the common and Estate woodland, with plenty of alleyways and trackways and narrow paths. If it came to it, she could push through thick scrubland and overgrowth. It meant a trek but she could do that, she'd just have to watch out for Mum and Pepe coming back from the Common Stores.

 

It took a good part of an hour to walk up along side the wood and fields and second wood on the edge of the estate and then skirt around the older brick and flint village cottages, into the Common side entrance to the third wood, cross the cow field – luckily no cow had a calf so they just watched her with mild, gentle, curious eyes, and into the second wood by climbing the fence. Then all it needed was to cross the field by the old monument that Disraeli had put up for his dead wife and then sneak down the hill path in the bottom of the first wood and somehow get back to the secret grotto. The monument was where she had to stop to get her breath back and drank some of the lemon squash and ate an apple, admiring the view across the valley parkland, the stream snaking through like a glittering silver snake in the lowering sun. It was beautiful. She supposed she was lucky, the council estate was quite tough, full of scary kids who bullied and laughed at her and her books, but she also had this.

 

The sun was beginning to grow pink and touch the horizon though. She looked at her watch. Already gone five. She was supposed to be home by four.

 

Cassandra ran, slipping and sliding down the steep hill to the bottom of the first wood, running up the path that went along the bottom, behind the back of the bigger, posher houses in Disraeli Crescent that overlooked the park. She turned and began the difficult scramble off the paths and cuts, through the undergrowth and new trees, brambles scratching her legs through her jeans and stinking nettles burning her ankles. She rarely went to her fairy grotto this way, coming down normally from the upper level of the woodland, near her estate on the brow of the hill ridge.

 

The alien, the Master, was leant back, his head tipped up, his eyes closed. They snapped open as she approached, although she had been careful to be silent for the last approach, no point giving them away to any nearby soldier with a snapped twig.

 

“You took your time my dear.”

 

“Sorry.” Cassandra squatted down and began to unpack. The Master took the bottle of made up squash and drank desperately. “There are lots of soldiers. They are not letting anyone in the wood any more. I had to do about a three mile detour. Honestly!” she cried to his sceptical look. “Also, I had to wait til Mum was out and Daddy was distracted to get this. She pulled out the old fob watch from her pocket, holding it out to him with the palm of her hand.

 

He had seemed to wince as she said 'Daddy' and took it from her. “Do you want to know what this is my dear child?”

 

“Yes!” she said quickly, then thought about it. “Maybe not.”

 

_~open me~_

 

“My daughter is in here. I can feel her,” he said mysteriously, not explaining anything at all.

 

“Daughter... In a watch! You're crazy!”

 

_~let me out~_

 

“Do not call me crazy Cassandra! Sit down.”

 

Cassandra sat on a broken log opposite him. “Sorry.”

 

“No. You are a good girl. Tell me. Are you happy here?”

 

Cassandra paused. The Master saw the pause and pressed the watch back into her hands. She closed both hands around it tightly and closed her eyes.

 

Was she happy? She loved her parents, her brother, and her dog was her best friend, she loved him so much. She didn't have friends at school, unless you counted a couple of teachers, which you really weren't supposed to. She liked the learning bit. She loved books.

 

“There are storybooks aplenty on Gallifrey. Besides, you can also access children's books from Earth there too. Books better than the ones you read, ones not written yet,” the Master said, as if he knew her thoughts.

 

“You can read my mind!” Cassandra said, scared.

 

“A little. You are telegraphing Cassandra Jones. Oh, how you would love His Dark Materials and Harry Potter. Why wait for two or three more decades? Now answer me! Are you happy?”

 

No, she wasn't. Sometimes, a little, reading or out in the woods or cuddled up with the dog watching Professor X on the TV on a Saturday evening. But there was her grandad, there was being special, there was being made to feel useless and stupid. There was the nights of anxiety and fear, of never sleeping, of feeling so sad she sometimes wished to be dead at only nine years old.

 

_I am so sad. I am alone. My father and papa left me. Ushas left me. My sisters disowned me. My Father's House buried itself in the ground and Papa's House disinherited us... Uncle..._

 

“You left me!” Cassandra said indignantly for Sanjiandrovanri.

 

“Oh my dear, I had no choice. I was discovered. There was nowhere in the universe I could hide. To appease The People and the Empire of Traken, they had to act, or be seen to. They threw me in an oubliette my dear. Do you know what that means? A prison with no doors, a prison hidden out of time, shared only with one elderly mad Time Lord, one who puts my crimes in the shade. I came to say goodbye. I read you to sleep. I told you I loved you very much. That is still true.”

 

_~mary poppins~_

 

“I always hated that film!”

 

“My dear girl. All I have done is for order, for justice. So many suffer throughout the universe. Just think, with one benign Master, if I owned it all, I could stop the suffering. Say the word Sanjiandrovanri, and I will kill Cassandra's grandfather, as quickly or as slowly and as painfully as possible. And then you can travel with me, when you are older you can help me to rule the universe, its Mistress under your father, its one and only Master.”

 

The confused girl gasped, and stood, taking a step back.

 

_~you have parents, parents who cuddle you and read you bedtime stories, who feed you and make sure you are clean and listen to you, even if the tease when your grandad is there~_

 

“I will always carry those memories. Won't I?” Cassandra said abruptly. One thing at a time, like the Lady Hoolie always said. Who was the Lady Hoolie? But it was true, deal with the watch and how it called out and explained, then deal with the alien father who wished to rule the universe and kill Cassandra's grandfather. Her grandad! Whichever!

 

The Master nodded. “Cassandra Jones will always be a part of you. Let your parents think I killed you. It's better that way. Think about it. Their daughter must have died. They got nine extra years, rather than mere moments. Better than them knowing an alien used them. No doubt your father put you here...”

 

But Cassandra wasn't listening. She was listening to the voice in the watch, to a double heart-beat waiting. She flipped the broken watch open...

 

Golden glowing artron energy flowed out and around and in her...

 

After a while, Sanjiandrovanri opened her eyes. “I have not seen my father since the morning of your arrest. Uncle Braxiatel put me here,” she said, coldly and calmly. She was just eight years old, although perhaps nine now, but certainly a child ready for the Academy, who could practice enough Control and Detachment, when she needed.

 

Yet she had lived another nine Earth years. She had literally lived two lifetimes. The double beat was familiar and unfamiliar, and it quickened with fear, as she knew exactly why she was hidden. To prevent exactly what Cassandra Jones had walked her straight into.

 

And she was glad.


	13. Missing

Meanwhile, back in Cassandra Jones's home, her parents were having a worried conversation. It was now gone six, and soon to get dark.

 

“She's never been gone this long. Should we phone the police?” Annie Jones said.

 

“What time did you tell her to be back?” Jim Jones replied. “Did you have a row again? She packed her bag in one of her runaway dramas. You know she gets to the bottom of the wood and comes back again when she realises she needs a grown up, or at least money and a home,” he was half-laughing, not prepared to take it that seriously yet, but also, the more he was nervous, the more he laughed.

 

“No. Everything was fine. I was a bit worried about her getting under the soldiers feet, but she said they were boring. She was just going to her favourite tree to read.”

 

“Isn't that by where their base of operations is?”

 

“No. Yes! Oh why didn't I pay more attention to where her reading tree is? I thought it was opposite the front path.”

 

“That's where they shut it off from. They've shut the whole wood now.”

 

“Even if she got to the bottom, and walked up around the roads, she should be home by now!” Annie panicked. “She's safe in the wood. But on the roads, she has to pass the factories and pubs! And cross several busy roads in the rush hour!”

 

“I doubt anyone would hurt her. And she's sensible crossing the road.” Jim swallowed and put his arms around his wife. “I think we should call the police.”

 

“Maybe we should ask the soldiers first? Perhaps they have seen something. They could radio the police for us, it might be faster than dialling 999.”

 

Jim nodded and grabbed his coat, while his wife went to tell their young son to stay in the living room watching Nationwide and they would be over by the television mast with the soldiers, and to bring Pepe if he wanted them.

 

“But stay here,” Jim added, in a voice that brooked no argument.

 

Alan nodded, he was ignoring the television and building a complex Lego town, while the dog, happy someone was on the floor with him, was repeatedly licking his feet.

 

 

*

 

Sanjiandrovanri dimly knew that Cassandra Jones' family would be worried. She didn't know what to do about that. Papa said it would be better they thought she was – Cassandra was - dead, rather than a disguised alien princess. Alien at any rate. The princess bit was a fantasy of Cassandra. Oakdown was a Great House, and she was a Lady of Time, but Oakdown had disowned Papa and his progeny, so she wasn't even close to being a princess.

 

Papa had eaten and drunk his fill and now was in a light healing trance. She was watching over his sleeping form, listening out for UNIT troops. She was glad for her newly acquired old Gallifreyan senses, as it was quite dark now the sun had set, this deep in the wood, with the overgrowth thick with beech, oak, and chestnut.

 

She nibbled on party rings and watched and listened until her eyes and ears hurt.

 

Papa wanted to rule the universe. She did not think that was healthy. Even if he said he wanted to make sure no one was hurt.

 

He had hurt people though. He had been put in Shada for mass killings of aliens and the killing non-regenerate dead several members of the High Council and many Capitol Guards.

 

And he used to hit Father.

 

She didn't remember much about the time before Papa left, but she remembered that. She remembered trying to stop him one time, remembered shaking inside with anger and fear, remembered that she could not bear it any more. She had only been a tiny Time Tot, only just started Kindergarten, when she had tried to protect Father from Papa.

 

Then Papa had hit her and Father seemed to find inner strength and threw Papa out. She didn't see him again until the night before his arrest.

 

Until now.

 

Perhaps Uncle Braxiatel had been right to hide her? Even if Cassandra Jones had had a miserable life too. Worse maybe than her own.

 

Or was Cassandra Jones her? Was her life hers too?

 

Her head hurt. She didn't want to go back to being Cassandra Jones now. But she didn't want her – Cassandra's – parents to be sad.

 

She didn't want to try to rule the universe with Papa either. It sounded like an awful lot of hard work. A lot of fighting and death, as the peoples of the universe no doubt didn't want to be ruled by Papa.

 

She wanted to go home, and start at the Academy, as she had been supposed to.

 

But if she told Papa that, what would he do? She loved him, but she was so scared of him. He hit her once. Would he kill her if she didn't obey him? He had already killed so many. Including the mast's watchman and a neighbour – Cassandra's neighbour! - out walking his dog, because they got in the way.

 

 

*

 

 

A soldier took Jim and Annie Jones into the tent under the mast, where an officer with a neat moustache was poured over a map of the Hughenden Estate and woodlands with a strangely dressed man in a purple velvet jacket over a lilac frilled shirt with bright white blond hair.

 

“Mr and Mrs Jones, Sir. Their daughter has gone missing. Thought they better ask us before phoning the police. Dixon already had dealings with her this morning, apparently.”

 

The officer straightened up from the map, as did the man in the extravagant civvies. “Thank you Benton. Stay will you, we will need to coordinate a search. Hello, please, won't you sit down Mrs Jones.”

 

“I'm fine. I thought you could radio the police,” she said.

 

“We're in command here, Mrs Jones. The man we after is a very dangerous alien... ahem, foreign agent.”

 

“I'm sure your daughter is fine,” the other man said, his eyes expressing sympathy for their worry. “If we could have a description, Sergeant Benton will see to it that all our men, who are spread out over the woods, village, common and estate, will look out for her.”

 

“Brown hair in a purdie bob, red anorak, patched blue jeans – you know, with those patterned patches in the knees that all the kids are wearing? - and red wellingtons,” Annie said, biting her lip. “She's nine, but very small for her age, and very skinny. People think she looks about seven. She nearly died when she was a baby. Or she did – then a doctor saved her – her brought her back to life. I always think that's why she is so tiny. She's such a dreamer you know, and trusts everyone...”

 

The man in the velvet jacket put a reassuring hand on Annie's shoulder. “I'm sure she is fine Mrs Jones. Can I get you a cup of tea?”

 

“I think we should go back, we left our son alone,” Jim said.

 

“You go! I'm not leaving until we find our Cassie!”

 

“I think you should go back to your son, Mr Jones. We'll send a soldier as soon as we know something. I can tell your wife will not be moved. I quite understand how you both feel, I have a daughter myself, you know, about the same age,” the officer said gently. “Benton, get onto all traps and greyhounds with the description. Doctor, tea sounds like an excellent idea.”

 

 

*

 

 

Papa – the Master – opened his dark, hooded eyes. He was shorter that Sanjiandrovanri remembered him, more compact and stocky, but he seemed stronger. Weren't regenerated bodies supposed to be stronger than loom bodies anyway?

 

What was her body now? Her loom body again? Or a new one? It had been turned human. She remembered her uncle saying there would be pain, and then nothing until she opened the watch and was bathed in light. Coming back had not hurt at all.

 

Except that was wrong, she remembered nine and half years of being Cassandra Jones, of being human, of growing up in England of the 1960s and 70s as a rather ordinary girl, even if she pretended she wasn't ordinary.

 

All to keep her safe from the Master.

 

From Papa!

 

“I will not hurt you child,” he said, reading her confused thoughts again. “So, it is dark now. Excellent. We will move now under the cover of the trees. Do you know the way to the bottom of the wood, to the houses opposite the parkland? The valley, in other words, far from the communication tower.”

 

“Yes Papa. I still know everything Cassandra knew about the woods.”

 

“Good. Let us go then child.”

 

 

*

 

As the hours went by, and none of the traps posted variously at all entrances to the woods and all greyhounds scattered though the woods, estate, village and common land, nor those on any of the road blocks, reported seeing a child of such a description, or at least since three o'clock that afternoon up on the common, the Brigadier was in despair. The Doctor's eyes looked bruised, wounded, as if the thought of the Master killing a child was more than he could bear. Lethbridge Stewart was no fool, he could see that the history between the two renegade Time Lords went deeper than old school friends. After the first hour he had sent poor, distraught, Mrs Jones home with Corporal Carol Bell, instructing her to look after the Jones and he would contact her as soon as there was news.

 

But there was no news.

 

Time went on.

 

“Dammit!” the Brigadier swore, and grabbing his swagger stick, stormed out of the base of operations tent.

 

The Doctor hastily pulled on his cloak and followed. “My dear chap, where are we going?”

 

“To the bottom of the hill. Where Yates set up the latest check point. We were fools not to notice that alleyway into the wood sooner.”

 

“We were focused on the brow of the hill, where the Master put the transmitters,” the Doctor replied, but he knew it was an oversight of both of them.

 

The walked carefully down the wide, steep, path, cutting through the middle of the woodland, their torches picking out enough light in front not to fall over on tree roots and large pieces of flint sticking out of the chalk and clay mud. The smell of bluebells was almost overwhelming.

 

 

*

 

Sanjiandrovanri had led the way carefully down the steep embankment, adding new scratches and stings to her new Gallifreyan legs that had somehow retained the marks of the nettles and brambles that Cassandra has acquired on the way up to the hidden 'grotto'. Her Papa followed as silently as a cat, carrying her bag for her.

 

The path at the bottom, once they finally reached it, was eerily full of patches of light and shadow cast by the houses beyond the wood, their back gardens stretching up to meet the trees on the steep slope. Occasionally they could hear people talking in their gardens, smell cigarette smoke or the beginning of a supper being cooked. The smell of frying chips made her tummy rumble.

 

As they approached the junction of the tiny path with the large one that cut though the middle of the wood from the alley at the bottom to the top path that ran parallel with the housing estate at the very top of the high hill, Papa stepped in front of her, and stopped her in her tracks with his hand on her shoulder. He handed her the bag with her – or Cassandra's! _ things. But she intended having Tatty Bear with her to become a friend to Teddy and Doggie. They were toys from Earth any way. They might like a fellow Earthling.

 

Did they allow you toys at the Academy? She hoped so? She would smuggle them in, any way!

 

If she got to the Academy. That rather depended on Papa, who had escaped from prison and wouldn't be able to go home.

 

Could she contact Uncle Braxiatel?

 

No.

 

“Come out! I see you!” a voice called out, and a soldier stepped out in front of them. Several more appeared behind him in a sudden rush of noise of cracking twigs and rustling leaves.

 

Papa turned to run, but another soldier appeared behind them, obviously having skirted around through the thick undergrowth, the movement of the other soldiers covering his noise.

 

“There's nowhere to run, Master,” the soldier behind said.

 

Papa grabbed Sanjiandrovanri roughly and pushed her in front of him.

 

“No one move or I will snap her neck!” he said.

 

“Papa!” Sanjiandrovanri cried out in shock.

 

“What's this?” an imperious voice called out from the dark. He stepped forward. A tall man with a moustache, carrying a torch in one hand and a gun in the other put himself in front of the other soldiers. He was obviously in charge. “Steady on Master. She's just a child.”

 

“Why has he convinced her he's her father?” the soldier who had been in front asked.

 

“No idea sergeant,” the officer began.

 

“He is my Papa so there!” Sanjiandrovanri shouted.

 

The man behind the man in charge stepped into the light of the soldiers' torches. It was the man in the purple velvet jacket and the black cloak with red lining that had been climbing the mast that morning.

 

“You are Cassandra Jones, my dear. Try to remember. Try to fight the Master's control. Remember your Mum and Daddy, your little brother and your dog. You are Cassandra Jones.” The man was tall, with a shock of white hair on top of his head and a beaky nose. He looked right into her eyes with his blue ones.

 

The Master laughed. “Oh my dear Doctor, are you sure about that. Look again. Look deeply.”

 

The Doctor...?

 

That meant...

 

“Father? Is that you? You're so tall.” She knew she wasn't meant to comment on regeneration, it wasn't polite, but... She tried to take a step forward but Papa held her back. Suddenly she felt the cold, sharp press of steel against her throat. Papa had produced a knife from his pocket and was holding it against her neck.

 

“What is this?” the officer, her Father's seeming friend, demanded.

 

Father looked startled, shocked, sick, many things. He took a step closer.

 

“No closer!” Papa said. “I will slit her throat, have no doubt.”

 

The man with the moustache waved a hand and all the soldiers lowered their big guns and stepped backwards.

 

Father still stood where he had been. He put his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed. “Master. Please. Let her go. You don't mean it,” he pleaded.

 

“Don't I?”

 

Sanjiandrovanri closed her eyes and realised exactly what Uncle had been hiding her from.

 

They slowly began to walk backwards towards the alley entrance. Tears silently coursed down her face.

 

Once further enough down the alley to be out of earshot Papa released her, only to take her hand as they continued to walk down the alley to the road beyond. “Oh my dear girl, you do understand we had to pretend so Papa could get away back to his TARDIS, don't you?”

 

Sanjiandrovanri wiped the tears from her face and nodded. “I... I think so.”

 

“Good girl.”

 

“Hold it right there!” a male human voice demanded as they came out of the alley way, standing between two houses and their front gardens and driveways.

 

“Now now, Captain Yates. Think carefully. I have a hostage. The missing girl, Cassandra Jones. I will hurt her.” Papa produced the knife again.

 

“Alright little missy?” Captain Yates asked gently.

 

“Perfectly fine thank you,” Sanjiandrovanri whispered, scared to talk properly with the knife again at her throat.

 

“All right Master, let the girl go,” the Captain said.

 

Papa began to walk backwards, towards a car parked on the right hand of the alley way. He fiddled with something and the door opened. She could feel the dimension interface, hear the hum of the capsule.

 

Suddenly she was shoved, landing roughly on her knees, a thump as her bag landed beside her, and the doors slammed behind her. The sounds of dematerialisation began. Sanjiandrovanri stumbled to her feet and ran towards the fading car.

 

“Papa! Papa! Don't leave me!” she screamed, falling into the empty space that the TARDIS had been a few moments before, sobbing her hearts out.

 

 

*

 

 

“Miss. Little Miss. Please stop. Your name is Cassandra Jones, isn't it? Come on, up you get. The Master can hypnotise people. Please.”

 

Sanjiandrovanri stood and wiped her tears, talking a big, gulping breath. She could practice Detachment and Control. “ My name is the Lady Sanjiandrovanri and I am indeed the daughter of the Master. I have been disguised as a human child to stop him finding me. It failed, as you can see. Now, kindly tell the Doctor I am alive. I am also his daughter, you see.”

 

Mike Yates stared at the little girl in the normal clothes and the tear stained face and pitied her. Not because he felt that the Master had implanted a hypnotic belief, but because he believed her. He reached out to touch her cold face, as cold as the Doctor or the Master to touch.

 

“Alright little lady. Hold on.” He picked up his radio. “Trap twenty to Greyhound One. Trap twenty to Greyhound One. Greyhound Two here. The Master has left in his TARDIS. And I have the Doctor's daughter with me. Repeat, I have the Doctor's daughter here. Unharmed tell him. Over.”

 

“Greyhound One to Trap Twenty. Much relieved to hear child is safe. Must confessed to being confused about this Mike. Where is your location? Over.”

 

“Bottom of the alley Sir. Over.”

 

“We'll be right down Captain Yates. Call to operations base for a vehicle. Over.”

 

Within seconds there was a flurry of red and black and purple and white, as the Doctor, thin and fit and fast, ran out of the alley and threw himself on the floor beside her and scooped her into a tight hug.

 

“My dear girl. My dear. Did he hurt you? Are you safe? How did you manage to be here, disguised as a human child, with human parents who think you are really theirs?”

 

“Uncle Braxiatel, Father. He wanted to hide me from the Master. He used the Chameleon Arch. I think the real Cassandra Jones was stillborn.”

 

“Brax is an idiot. He always has been,” Father said, burying his face in her hair.


	14. The Doctor

It was surprising how the Doctor and his friend, the Brigadier, came to the same conclusion as the Master. Sanjiandrovanri sat on her father's lap during the short car ride to the TV mast, listening to the Brigadier, the Captain, and her father discuss what was best for her and for the Joneses.

Obviously she was no longer Cassandra Jones, through some mechanism that was way above both humans minds, but they were both open-minded enough to accept the fact of her Gallifreyan nature and took the Doctor's word he was her father.

Equally obviously, the Jones family had a missing daughter, and were extremely worried and frightened, her going missing while there was an army operation in the area, looking for a 'foreign' criminal following the murder of two men and something weird being done to the TV mast.

In the end, Sanjiandrovanri was handed over to another friend of the Doctor, a Sergeant Benton, and he and the solider who had been so dismissive of her, Private Dixon, drove her to UNIT HQ to get her out of the way. She understood that, with the local police, the Doctor, the Brigadier, and a woman soldier, were going to tell Cassandra Jones's parents that she was dead, that they were going to be told enough about the Master to understand that there would be no body. The bodies of the two men had been compressed, shrunk to the size of a Sindy Doll. No parent would want to see that.

She didn't want to think about the pain she was causing them. Cassandra- she! - loved her parents. She guessed that the real Cassandra Jones had been dead when she was born and Uncle Braxiatel had taken the dead baby away and left her in their place. So, Cassandra had been right on both counts, a fairy changeling and a hidden alien princess, all the games she had played make-believe. She had been, in fact, an alien changeling, hidden among a loving human family.

Mostly. Not Cassandra's grandparents. Obviously.

She hoped at least that Papa would keep that promise and kill her grandfather. Cassandra's grandfather. Her grandfather was Papa's father.

And he had disowned her. All of them. Her big sisters too.

Did she want Cassandra Jones's grandad dead?

No, then she was no better than her Papa. Arrested, imprisoned, so no more little girls could be hurt, yes. But not dead. Not to take revenge. That would be evil. Was her Papa evil? Was Cassandra's grandfather also evil? Were there different layers of evil? She would try to find the words to tell her father. Although, the pain and fear and confusion remained in her real form. And a nine year old Gallifreyan had no more words to explain what had been done to her than a human one did.

She sat in the back of the jeep, her mind a turmoil, for over an hour, watching other car lights stream past going the other way. Eventually, exhaustion gave way to confusion, and she slept.

 

*

 

“Miss. Little Missy,” the soldier shook her shoulder gently.

“M'm? What? Where am I?”

“We're here miss. Let me take you to the Doctor's laboratory. We'll wait there.”

“All right.” What else could she do? She followed Private Dixon through the building to a large room, it looked like a school room, with a long bench and Bunsen burners and glass flasks. Bits of machinery and components littered the bench and three tables pushed again the walls. There was a sink, some chairs, a hat stand, a large rectangular box with 'Police Box' written on the side and a lamp on top. The TT Capsule hummed in a rather sick way. What the chameleon circuit had set it too, she had no idea. It wasn't exactly blending in.

She went to the door and pushed. It was locked. She read 'pull to open', which sounded a dangerous way to approach the dimensional interface, but she tried pulling all the same. She pressed her forehead and sighed.

“Hello dear,” it hummed.

“Hello,” she said aloud, hoping the capsule might let her in.

“Will you be okay on your own for a bit love?” Private Dixon asked, in that way of adults, that meant if she said no he was going away anyway. He was looking at her a bit strangely after she said hello to her father's capsule.

Bored, left alone, and locked in, she looked at the bits of machinery and technology. Surely that was a dematerialisation circuit? And that, it was made of validium, which did not exist on Earth.

She picked up a white paper bag and looked inside. Jelly babies. At least there was something to eat.

When Benson came in with cocoa and a snack he found the girl curled up on the floor under the workbench, cuddling a battered, tatty, old, teddy bear, her head leant on her bag, a cape of the Doctor's draped over her, an empty paper bag screwed up next to her. He placed the cocoa and bread and butter beside her on the floor and left.

 

*

 

Birds were singing the dawn chorus when Sanjiandrovanri awoke. She opened her eyes to find father sitting beside her cross-legged, smiling.

“Good morning my dear.”

“Father?” she sat up. “Oh. I have to...”

“Through there, second door on the right,” her father replied. “Come straight back,” he added, in case she had ideas of running away.

Why would she do that? There was a TT Capsule, it could get her home and to the Academy.

She did a wee, washed her hands, drank a lot of water from the tap and rushed back.

“Well then,” her father said, pacing about. “Suppose you tell me all about it?”

“About what Father? Where is Susan?”

“Well, about why you were on Earth, as a human. Such a dangerous thing, to put a child through the chameleon arch. And what happened with the Master.”

“Do you mean Papa?”

“That man!” her Father's voice began to rise in anger. He stopped himself and took a centring breath.

_Control and detachment Lady Sanjiandrovanri. You, of all Time Tots, like your sisters before you, must work hard to practice both._

“The Master is no more your papa than my husband. And be careful, humans are very fixed on their ideas on who can parent or marry. There is a word, homophobia. It describes humans of this era concerning same gender relationships. It is illegal for same sex couples to adopt here. Ridiculous, I know, but...”

“Father?” she interrupted carefully.

“Sanji?”

“It's too late. I told Captain Yates you were both my parents. Besides, so did Papa – I mean the Master. Can I have breakfast? I'm so hungry.”

“You ate my jelly babies, I see,” he said, smiling.

“Well, I was starving.”

“But you had cold cocoa and some dried up bread and butter beside you?”

“Do I?” Sanjiandrovanri peered under the bench. “Someone brought that in when I was asleep or I would have eaten it. Much better for me. Jelly babies are not a nutritious supper for a growing Time Tot.”

“Or breakfast, h'm?” Father said, grabbing the back of his neck and smiling awkwardly. “So someone once told me.”

“The day you left!” She shook with uncontrollable, childhood, powerless, rage. It was frightening. It threatened to overwhelm her. She had never lost her temper, never complained, had always done as she was told. Cassandra had been free to shout, to stamp her feet, to cry, to have a tantrum when overwhelmed. Why hadn't she?

“Come on,” her Father said, smiling, standing up and holding out his hand. She thought he was more smily than she remembered. He had always been so cross and grumpy, when he hadn't been sad and weepy. There was something he was burying from her, he wouldn't make contact. But he smiled at lot at her. Was he happy to see her? He promised he'd come back. But she had found him. And she wanted to go home, but she was sure he didn't. He went on, “I'll get you a proper human breakfast.”

She followed him through the buildings to the Refectory, soldiers and civilian people stopping to talk, to say hello to her, curiosity burning in their eyes and unspoken words.

_A child? The Doctor has a child? With the Master? How is that possible?_

She sat at a table by the window and watched a blackbird in a tree, listening to its song, until her father returned with a fried egg, baked beans, toast, and a glass of milk.

“An acceptable breakfast, I assume? The British of this era don't offer fruit for breakfast?”

It took her a moment to remember. “You remember?”

“The day I left is imprinted on my memory, two regenerations on. We have a slight problem my dear.”

“What Father?” she asked, mouthful around toast, runny yolk and baked beans. Already orange and yellow streaks smeared her red and white striped jersey. Or rather, Cassandra's jumper, knitted by her Mum. Also, egg yolk and baked beans sauce were smeared around her face.

“You and I, we're out of sequence. It is, I estimate, ten years at the most for you, since I left? Perhaps less. It is centuries for me. For your Papa too.”

“No it isn't. He escaped. That was why Uncle Braxiatel hid me.”

“Sometimes I think the expression 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' was written for your uncle. He's a fool. A well-meaning, naïve fool. And no, my dear, your other parent escaped, was captured, and imprisoned, and then escaped again, in the intervening centuries.”

“Oh.”

“He has used up many regenerations. I would think, all of them, escaping one form of justice or another throughout the universe.”

“Oh. He was kind to me. He told me about the watch. He told me to bring it and then to open it. He didn't hypnotise me or Cassandra. He tried but Cassandra wouldn't let him. Instead, a little bit of me leaked into Cassandra, so I suppose it was time to open the watch. It hurts so much Father, to think of Cassandra's Mum and Daddy hurting so much. They must be so sad, thinking I'm – that is, their daughter, who was me, but isn't me... I don't want to go back though! I want to go home, go to the Academy. I'm a year late.”

“My dear girl. Of course it is confusing for you. And of course you must go home. And I sent a message to the Time Lords. Another to your Uncle. I refrained from telling him quite what an idiot he is.”

Sanjiandrovanri put down her fork and looked straight into his eyes. “Can't you take me home?”

He looked down, ashamed, and rubbed at the back of his neck again. “Well, um, that is a problem. Until recently, the Time Lords – well, the Tribunal at least, after my Trial, they removed my knowledge of time travel. I'm exiled here. The CIA occasionally use me off world, and I can have the odd jaunt, but always ping back here. I know I will not be able to get back to Gallifrey. Even I could, you would have jumped centuries ahead. You know time travel within the transduction barrier is forbidden. I can't take you back where you belong.”

“Nor can the Tribunal you contacted. Not anyone on the Gallifrey you contacted. Not even Uncle Braxiatel, not the one you contacted! He's going to be hundreds of years ahead too!” Sanjiandrovanri stood up, tipping her chair back and pushing her food away in a panic. Such basic temporal mechanics was something she understood very well, had done since she was half her age. She also knew enough of Gallifreyan Law, of The Primary Edict Of Rassilon, and what was impossible under the transduction barrier. “I've broken the law! I've travelled centuries ahead and can't go backwards now any more than you!”

“Sanjiandrovanri, calm down. Sit down this instant.”

“NO!”She stamped her foot. “Everyone I ever knew at Kindergarten is an adult, will have graduated from the Academy. My sisters will be regenerated by now. Damon will be an adult, older than me. I am not calming down Father, I am not. I wish Cassandra never saw Papa. I wish you had never rescued me! I wish I had gone with Papa. He told me I could rule the universe with him. I thought that was bad. But I wanted to go to the Academy and now I can't!” She was completely oblivious to all the humans in the Canteen staring at them.

“You are not too young to have a smacked bottom young lady. Calm down.”

“No! I'm not too young but you are too old. Very too old. And no one has smacked my bottom since you abandoned me. Not one single Time Lord. And I'm telling you Father, I was passed around like an unwanted parcel. The Children's Coordinator of the Citadel had to invent new terms just for me! The unwanted child! No one doesn't want a child on Gallifrey. No one. Not like here. Here Cassandra was wanted and loved. I wish I had never opened that watch! And I wish you were NOT MY FATHER!”


	15. UNIT HQ

The Doctor was aware of everyone in the Canteen staring at him as he watched her daughter's retreating tiny back. She was still in the human clothes the human version of her had been wearing when she ran away with the Master. He supposed he needed to get her into a bath and find her some clothes from the wardrobe room. Except it wasn't just that the TARDIS wouldn't dematerialise much, let alone travel, not without damned stabilizers from the CIA, controlling his every journey like a puppet on a string! It was that the TARDIS didn't seem to be at full power, that lots of rooms seemed to be deleted, missing, or hidden in vast mazes of roundelled corridors. And did the wardrobe room have children's clothes? It must have once, when Susan was younger, or when Vicki and Victoria joined him. But Susan was older that Sanji, as were his young human companions, and also, his daughter seemed so tiny for her age. Although her age and her placing back on Gallifrey would be somewhat of a problem. Damn his brother!

He looked up and saw that all the humans were now studiously eating and talking loudly about anything but him and his daughter. He cleared the table, and took the tray to the counter, and left, to give them the freedom of gossip.

He had no plans, but his feet took him to the Brigadier's office.

“I can organise a search party immediately Doctor,” the Brigadier said as he entered.

“New travels fast I see Brigadier.” the Doctor sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “It will be fine. She will be fine. She won't go far. Oh dear, I have made a mess of things haven't I?” He pulled up a chair and sat down opposite the Brigadier.

“I can't judge you Doctor. I must confess, I'm finding it hard, to get the hang of you as a parent. I've met you with a different face, seen the marvels of your TARDIS, know how very alien you are, although I try not to think of that, to be honest. Unsettles me somewhat...”

“My dear chap, I had no idea...”

“I hope we are friends Doctor. I'm not saying I don't trust you. Good Lord, we rely on you. But I never thought about you... the Master... Time Lords... having children. I suppose if I thought about it I would have thought it was all test tubes and...”

The Doctor laughed wryly. “Well, in a manner of speaking, it is. We call it a genetic loom.”

The Brigadier laughed too, awkwardly, “Now that's so pompous it makes sense. Are you sure your daughter will be all right?”

“She's usually a very timid little thing. That's the second time I've ever seen her shout and show her feelings. The first time... Ah yes. I see why Braxiatel wanted to protect her.”

“I'm afraid I don't understand, Doctor.”

“Ah well Brigadier, you see, I'm not a very good parent.”

“I can't see that. The Master on the other hand... I'm sorry, no I must ask! I see but I don't, if you see what I mean. You and the Master are both men, well male. Aren't you? Homosexuality is... is....”

“Perceived very differently on my planet, I assure you. We don't even have labels or words. You love who you love. We all have children the same way. We were cursed, Brigadier, cursed. The meaning lost in aeons of time, a fairy tale if you like. A High Priestess suspended over a gap in reality, the untempered schism some call it, in a basket, cursing Gallifreyans to sterility for eternity. But, we found a way. And I can imagine, my dear chap, with your background, you find my past disturbing.”

“It's the fact that it makes a twisted sort of sense, and I've seen it all the time, that disturbs me, if I'm honest. But I distracted myself, fascinating though your planet's mythology is. I was going to say that I'm sure that the Master was a worse parent.”

“Oh Alistair, that is where you are wrong, for the most part, he was far the better parent. Bed times and healthy meals and bath times. I just wanted to play. Or I got bored. But the Master and I were dysfunctional, to say the least, particularly when we had our third child.”

“The little girl. Sanji... um, I'm sorry.”

“Sanjiandrovanri. Yes, his choice, not mine, a bit of a mouthful. I'm ashamed to say I let him take his increasing temper and insanity out on me, to protect him, and others.”

“He hit you?”

“Sanji got in the way. He hit her. That was the final straw, I threw him out. A few months later he was arrested. And I left Gallifrey in rather a hurry, taking my older granddaughter and not my youngest daughter. She was so quiet and timid and correct, and my granddaughter like me, restless, bored, curious. I thought her big sisters would look after her. It seems I was a fool. Such a stupid fool,” the Doctor put his head in his hands.

The Brigadier got up and came and stood behind the Doctor and touched his shoulder awkwardly then patted his back. “We all make mistakes as parents Doctor. Try not to feel bad. You have her back. I have no idea where my Kate is, none at all, what she is being told about me. I know I should have made more time for her and my wife, but somehow, alien invasions and dangerous experiments, you know the sort of thing I'm talking of, always got in the way.”

“My dear Brigadier, I knew you and your wife had separated, but I had no idea...”

“Don't like to talk about it,” he replied briskly, walking back to his seat behind his desk and sitting down. “Been three months now,” he went on, fiddling with a pen on his desk. “I keep hoping she'll cool down, get in touch, let me see Kate, take her to the zoo or something, once a week.”

“Earth's safety permitting, eh Brigadier?”

The Brigadier sighed. “Problem is, I never had clearance to tell her what I do. She thinks I'm a pen-pusher in Whitehall. What will you do?”

“I will give Sanji time to calm down. Then I think, it will be bath time and new clothes. I only just thought of it. Food and baths and clean clothes. I seem to be rubbish at remembering them.”

“But you love her Doctor, and have never harmed her. Love counts for more, surely, than a clean face or a healthy meal?”

“Haven't I? I abandoned her, didn't I? You have an excuse, my dear chap, you are protecting your planet, not even just your nation, as expected in these times. What did I do? Grow restless and curious.” The Doctor stood up and turned to walked away. “Well, I'll be seeing you...”

“Doctor! No, that's not good enough!” the Brigadier called after him. “I won't have my scientific advisor wallowing in self-pity. You've saved this planet. And hundreds of others, no doubt! And you protected your daughter from the Master until he had left your home planet. You are needed man, don't doubt yourself.”

The Doctor stopped at the door and turned back to look at the Brigadier. “Is that enough?” he asked sorrowfully and didn't wait for the Brigadier's reply.

 

*

Sanjiandrovanri wandered around for what felt like hours. While she was exploring, she was distracted. Every time she saw an adult, she managed to hide. It was quite easy, she was small, and for the most part the staff weren't expecting a child, and those that knew about her had heard the argument with father and were embarrassed. After a while she got tired and a great, confusing, sorrow swamped her, like she was drowning in sadness and loneliness.

So she hid for ages in an old outhouse and sat on some sacking, hugging her knees and rocking backwards and forwards, and sobbed her hearts out. She wished she had her teddy and her doggie, or even Cassandra's tatty bear. She needed a hug, and although Cassandra's grandad's special hugs had been nightmarish, to the point her body remembered and she felt so afraid she wanted to die at times – she wasn't even sure if this was just Cassandra or if she remembered and felt it and was unsafe even in her own Time Lady body - Cassandra's Mum and Daddy had given her lots of hugs, and she also could curl up on the floor with the dog and feel his warm body and his wet tongue lick her and all those touches make her, or Cassandra, safe and warm and loved. 

She, Sanjiandrovanri didn't have that. Who hugged her? She remembered vague feelings of being snuggled up with Father in her bed, or his bed, while he read to her, or more often, got bored of the book and made up his own stories. Stories of the stars, or travelling the universe, or other planets. Stories of what he wanted to do, and when he ran away, he took Susan with him to do and see and feel. Papa sometimes held her, but so stiff, and she could feel some kind of anger running deep in his soul, like a drum beating out its fearful, angry, violence in double-time. This was before he hit her. Sharn treated her as an embarrassment, even before Papa's arrest and Father's running away with Susan. Rosa was always more interested in Damon than her, and although her nephew was only half a year younger, they didn't hug, even as small Time Tots. She had nurses, but they were always formal. Ushas lectured and taught and was proud when she did well in a Kindergarten test, but never, ever held her. Uncle Braxiatel always seemed quite bewildered, as if he did not know how to talk to her and certainly he never hugged her. The Lady Hoolie, her teacher at Kindergarten, used to pat her on the shoulder or squeeze her hand and once stroked her hair. She thought perhaps Hoolie would like to have hugged her but wasn't allowed. 

It wasn't that humans hugged and Gallifreyans didn't. She watched other families at family days at the Kindergarten, in the Capitol and the Citadel, in the parks and museums and cafes that Uncle Braxiatel left her when he had to make some arrangements about books, sometimes alien books, and when she and Uncle went on the induction around the Academy.

“What you doing here Miss?” a voice interrupted her sad thoughts.

She looked up. It was a soldier.

“Don't make me go back to Father. Please. Not yet.”

“No miss. But it's cold and wet in here. Come into the guard house. We're about to play cards. Come on, me and the lads will teach you poker.”

It was gone tea time when the Brigadier found her in the guardhouse, winning at poker, sitting on one private's lap, wearing his beret, and stuffing her face with cake.

“What's all this?” the Brigadier roared. His men jumped to attention, and looked embarrassed.

“We didn't mean no harm Sir,” Steve, the one who's mum had baked the cake, said.

“We was just looking after the little girl, Sir,” Gary argued. Gary was who had taught her poker and let her sit on his lap, said he had a little sister her age.

“Seemed best to let the Doctor cool down, Sir,” Alan added. He had made her some sugary, milky tea, just as nice as Cassandra's Mum made it.

“Don't want excuses. The Doctor's out of his mind with worry.” He looked down at Sanjiandrovanri, who had hidden under the table as soon as he had begun shouting at his men. “Sanji.. and.. tro.. ver... rani...um, is it? Come along. You're not in any trouble. Your father is worried.”

She crawled out and stood up and glared up at the stern man with the bristling moustache. “You may call me Sanji,” she said imperiously. “Humans seem to have problems with my name. Is my Father sorry too?”

The Brigadier looked down at the tiny child, who seemed to carry something of the Doctor and the Master's arrogance, but also, seemed so vulnerable. Mind you, when he realised the tall blond man at Ashbridge Cottage Hospital was indeed the Doctor, he had seemed vulnerable, still did under all that bravado.

“Yes Sanji, he is. Very sorry indeed.” And he wasn't even lying, just not used to telling children the entire truth.

“And Alan, Gary, and Steve aren't in trouble are they? They looked after me.”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Because you shouted at them.”

“It's that way in the army, Miss, isn't it lads?” Gary replied. The other two young men nodded.

“Exactly,” the Brigadier agreed. “It's my job to shout at my men. Sorry if I startled you. Now, let's get you back to your Father, shall we?”

“Alright,” Sanji agreed meekly.

 

*

The Doctor didn't look quite like he had been out of his mind with worry. A glass Petri dish contained some glowing green slime, was placed under a clunky electron microscope while the Doctor, a black eye-glass in one eye, was examining a piece of florescence moss in a test tube.

“I've found her Doctor,” the Brigadier called cheerfully, as he ushered the small girl inside the lab.

“H'm? What?” He placed the test tube down on its stand and switched off the microscope. “There you are my dear. I hope you are ready to apologise.”

“The Brigadier said you were sorry!” she exploded hotly, looking at the Brigadier for reassurance. He grimaced at the Doctor and patted her head.

“And he is Sanji. Aren't you Doctor?” the Brigadier prompted gently, smiling at the Doctor.

“What? Yes. Of course. Although, there is nothing I can do about the time variation. I'm sorry dear.”

“And Sanji is sorry for running away and scaring your Father, aren't you?” the Brigadier prompted again, looking down at her, still with the same patient smile.

“Yes, I am sorry. Although not as sorry as I am for running away from my human parents. They are more sad than you Father.”

“Yes, I know my dear. It must be terribly confusing for you. Thank you Brigadier.”

“What? Oh. Yes. I'll be off then. Good night m'dear,” he said, nodding down at the little girl, who was climbing up onto a stool and looking at the moss.

“Bio-petro-chemical phosphorous decay?” she asked brightly.

The Doctor turned, his eye-glass popping out of his face into his hand. “Possibly dear girl, possibly. Recovered from a polluted mine in Wales.”

“I saw that on the news. Some company was dumping it's filth in the old mine, and some miners died. Alien?”

“No. It was... actually, you need a bath young lady. When did you last brush your teeth?”

“These teeth? At bedtime before Uncle Brax woke me up,” she replied cheekily.

“I'll leave you to it Doctor,” the Brigadier called from the door.

 

*

 

The Doctor took his daughter to his own bedroom close to the console room, explaining he had no idea where the wardrobe room had gone. Sanji showed him Cassie's clean pants and vest and socks, and the Doctor told her he had borrowed a sweater from Corporal Bell, that although a little big, would do better than the eggs and beans covered jersey, which had already been covered with mud and mulch from the wood.

The Doctor's bath was large and circular, almost a small swimming pool to the tiny Time Tot. She had fun with too many bubbles and plastic ducks, then the Doctor gave her a bowl of porridge for supper, made her clean her 'new-old' teeth, sternly telling her they were the same one's Cassandra had brushed two days before, the morning before finding the Master again, or his finding her to be exact. He then stumbled his way through the bio-mechanics of the Chameleon Arch, before reading from one of the Famous Five that Cassandra had taken with her when she had run away. He promised to buy her the whole set of 21 books before she returned to Gallifrey.

“If I do,” she replied sleepily.

“You want to?”

“Yes, but...”

“I'm sure there will be a way. Go to sleep now my dear girl,” the Doctor leant forward and kissed her forehead, before picking up the book again and returning to the Five exploring yet another secret tunnel. The children really seemed to stumble on adventures and secret passageways as much as he did!

Once his daughter was asleep he sat next to her on the bed, she looked so tiny in his bed, dressed in one of his shirts for a night gown, curled around the battered teddy bear of her human persona. What on Earth was his brother thinking? He didn't remember doing this much with her, with Sharn and Rosa, yes, they would snuggle in his bed when his husband was in one of his dark times, when he claimed his head was full of drums and his mind full of violence and he could not stand it, so took himself off for their safety. Sometimes he didn't, and they locked themselves away, or went to Koschei's father's estate. He never went home. Never.

Why didn't Sharn or Rosa take her on? He had assumed... had he failed them too, to turn them so cold-hearted that they deny their tiny sister a home?

He really had failed as a parent. Was what the Brigadier said any comfort at all? All the liberated and saved peoples of the universe, and yet he could not save his daughters.

He wished Jo were still here, she always knew what to say to him when maudlin. As did dear Liz. But Liz was who knew where, involved in top secret research, and Jo was on leave following handing in her notice to UNIT, getting ready for her wedding and trip up the Amazon. He needed to get her a wonderful wedding present. He could kill two birds with one stone tomorrow. He would take his daughter shopping. She really needed some more appropriate clothing.

Sanjiandrovanri stirred in her sleep, murmuring 'Papa'. He tucked the teddy back under her arm and tightened the bedclothes around her. Damn the Master! Damn him! Using their child as a pawn. He never imagined he could sink so low.


	16. Shopping

When Sanjiandrovanri awoke she was alone. She pulled off the frilly shirt of Father's she had slept in and quickly pulled on the borrowed, too-big, red polo neck jumper and the rather muddy jeans and red Wellingtons, used the bathroom and ate some toothpaste and splashed a bit of water on her face before going search of her father.

He was still in his capsule, the TARDIS, leaning thoughtfully on the console. She was silent, in case he was on the telepathic circuits, as he looked distant and thoughtful. It was never polite to interrupt a telepathic exchange, even with a machine mind, unless it was an emergency. She stood politely waiting.

Eventually he looked up, and then down at her, startled. “There you are my dear,” he said gently, as if his pupils hadn't widened in surprise. 

“What were you doing?”

“Thinking. This arrived, just outside the TARDIS door,” Father said, pointing to her old Kindergarten bag. 

“Was Uncle Braxiatel here? Why didn't you wake me?”

“He didn't wake me either. He obviously didn't want to face me. Good job, as I'm very cross with your uncle. He left a note.”

“What did it say?” Sanjiandrovanri asked, mouth around a cracker, spraying crumbs over her open bag and Carol Bell's jumper. Her uncle had obviously temporally suspended her bag in storage, as all her snacks and drinks she'd packed were as fresh as if she has packed them yesterday. Breakfast was often vague with Father, so she had decided to pre-empt the situation.

“That he was sorry. That he was going to appeal to the High Council about your return.”

“I might not be able to go home!” the small girl exploded, more emotion that felt too big for her hearts and brain overwhelming her. She curled up around the bag and started to rock.

The Doctor was instantly beside his daughter, sitting on the floor and folding her in his arms. “No, of course not. Sanjiandrovanri. Look at me. Come on. That's it.” He booped her nose and smiled down at her. She crawled into his bony lap. “Braxiatel is making an appeal, to get you to time travel backwards to take your proper place in your personal and Gallifrey's timelimes.”

“Am I in trouble Father?”

“No, No, of course not. Don't be silly! If any one is it would be me, your Uncle, and your Papa.” He grinned awkwardly and grabbed the back of his neck. “Well, your Papa and I are in all sorts of trouble for all sorts of reasons already, h'm? Your Uncle Braxiatel seems to be Teflon, nothing sticks to him, does it? Come on,” he chucked her under her chin and gently lifted her on his lap and stood up. “You need some clothes, and as the wardrobe room has gone wandering, we will have to buy some. The Brigadier gave me lots of currency. Apparently I have a salary! Are you ready?”

“What about breakfast?”

“I'm sure we can stop for something on the way.”

“Hold on.” Sanjiandrovanri quickly ran back to the bedroom,where she got the tatty bear of Cassandra and her bag, and open book on the nightstand, and rushed back to the console room, where she decanted her human self's belongings into her old Gallifreyan bag. “There, Teddy and Doggie and Tatty Bear can all get to know each other,” she explained.

The Doctor smiled at her from the door. “Right, my dear, put on your anorak and we'll get going. Let's get you some more appropriate clothing.”

 

*

The Doctor saw a little of himself at last in his small daughter as she looked at him, grinning, and climbed into his yellow roadster. “She's from the 1900s,” she enthused. “Oh, with an artron adapter. How fast can she go now?” Sanjiandrovanri asked, sitting in the driver's seat and turning the wheel.

“As fast as is needed. In this case, 60 miles an hour, we don't want human PC Plod stopping us, do we? So no, you can't drive,” he pre-emptied to his daughter as she opened her mouth to inquire. She looked so unhappy, he added with a grin, “but you can drive us slowly to the gate. Be careful, she's called Bessie.”

“Hello Bessie,” Sanjiandrovanri said happily, and turned the engine over.

 

*

 

It didn't take long at all before they reached the A40. It had been a pleasant, leafy-green drive from the UNIT HQ, passing big houses and tiny village cottages and farmhouses, fields of cows or growing wheat dotted in-between the beech and chestnut and oak woodlands of the Chilterns, not so different to the other side of the Chilterns she had lived as the human Cassandra Jones. She found that Cassandra's love of woodlands had spilled over into her true Gallifreyan self, something more to puzzle over. Still, it was a good love, and she wondered if whoever was charged with looking over her would take her to the red forests of the northern polar regions – so much of Gallifrey was dust and desert and forbidden outlands outside the cities, that which wasn't farmed. She felt certain young Time Ladies would not be allowed to go to the farms or the outlands. Everyone lived in cities, everyone who counted anyway.

Sanjiandrovanri tipped her head back and looked up as the green leaves flashed by. She would miss the green of Earth, of that she was certain.

And perhaps Father. He still hadn't told her about her niece and she knew absolutely that Hypatia would demand to know the instant she stepped foot back home.

Bessie picked up speed once they were on the A40 and heading for London. Her Father had obviously tweaked the old human-made roadster beyond the recognition of the inventor of the combustion engine. She had an invisible windshield too, so it was quite warm, despite the apparent openness to the elements and the speed.

A sudden rumbling in her stomach reminded her that Father had said something about stopping for breakfast.

“Soon my dear,” he said to her thoughts, or perhaps her rumbling tummy. And within minutes they had pulled into a petrol station and driven behind it to the Little Chef.

Sanjiandrovanri remembered such road side cafes being an incredible treat to Cassandra and her brother when they went on their annual family holiday and the trips up to the Midlands to see their great-grandparents.

Poor Alan. He would think his sister was dead. He was a pain, but little brothers were meant to be. Would he recover? Would Mum and Daddy – she meant Mr and Mrs Jones, of course. It was so confusing and painful.

Father's hand took her small one and squeezed. “It is very painful for you, my dearest, but it will get easier. Children should never, ever, be put through a Chameleon Arch, you are too young and inexperienced to process all the information you gather as the other person. It will get easier, Sanji my dear. I promise. Now, here we are, breakfast. What do you fancy?”

“Shall we see what is on the menu first, Father,” his young daughter replied, struggling with Detachment and Control, and sounding rather patronising, as she climbed down from Bessie.

“You don't have to keep it all in, Sanji, you can let it all out.”

“But... but...” she stood by the car, confused, her memory a jumble of Papa, her grandparents at the House of Oakdown, teachers at Kindergarten, telling her to control, to detach herself from her feelings.

“Feelings are good. Don't be afraid, you have a lot to process. I bet Cassandra let all her feelings out, didn't she?”

Sanjiandrovanri remembered nights of terror, of being special in the back of her Grandad's car, of biting down pain and fear, of not knowing what was happening, of not being allowed to tell, not having the words to tell, being afraid to tell... but she didn't have the words now. But she had to tell. She had to. For any other little girls he knew. She grabbed her Father's hands and pressed them to her face, trying to prize his fingers apart and place them on the psi-points. 

“Mostly, but please...” she whispered. “Can I show you...?”

~contact~ she felt her Father's mind gently brush hers, as gentle as a butterfly kiss. His horror and shock and disgust, he shielded from her.

“Your Uncle should have kept a closer eye on you, at least," was all he said when he broke the contact, and walked off towards the service station restaurant door.

Some people gave the rather grubby, tiny child and the tall man in his dandy clothes of frills and velvet a second glance as they walked in, but the Doctor smiled and said good morning to the odd looks. Taking his lead, Sanjiandrovanri grabbed her Father's hand and said loudly, “I'm starving Father!”

The waitress led them to a window table where they could watch the traffic, and produced one menu and one children's menu. The Doctor plucked the children's menu from his daughter's hand and scanned it. “Rather limited. What is fish fingers? And minced beef steak?”

“Fish fingers are chunks of cod in breadcrumbs. I think the other think is posh and pretentious for a hamburger without a bun.”

“H'm. Chose what you wish from the adult menu.”

“What if I wanted fish fingers and fried potatoes?” 

“Do you?”

“Cassandra remembers... I remember that Cassandra loved them. But can I have a grapefruit for a starter. Oh, look, 'early starter'. That must be breakfast. I want eggs, beans, tomatoes, fried potatoes and toast. And grapefruit.”

“Please.”

Sanji grinned up at her father. “Please Father.”

When the waitress returned, the Doctor ordered his daughter's choice, twice, plus a pot of tea for two with extra milk.

Once his daughter had eaten her fill, and they had chatted about photosynthesis, chlorophyll over iron residue, he said casually, “I could speak to the Brigadier, he has connections with the police. They could investigate that man. Would you like that? I fear you might have to give evidence, and a statement, and that could prove awkward. Perhaps there are other victims they could find. I will be guided by you. And you must talk to me about the overspill of Cassandra's feelings, my dearest, you must trust me to help you. I'm glad we have some time together.” He took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb gentle, having no idea that Cassandra's grandad did just such a thing.

Sanji pulled her hand away sharply. “You promised to come back for me!” she snapped.

“Oh, my dear girl, I wanted to, but it was impossible!”

“I bet you forgot me!” she practically snarled, trying not to cry, trying to not think about why she was really so angry and sad.

“I didn't really know how to pilot the TARDIS. She is old, and rather contrary. And what would have happened if I came home? They dragged me home, stole my friends, but put me on trial in a jumped up kangaroo court, didn't let me contact my family or friends, and forced a regeneration and exiled me here. When could I come for you? When? We're together now. You must tell me all about your big sisters.”

“Then you tell me about Susan, it's all Hypatia will want to know about it. And what do I know, they didn't want me, I lived with Ushas.”

“Ushas!? I thought you were with your Uncle.”

“Only after they exiled Ushas. She's called the Rani now. Her experiments got a bit out of hand. Uncle Braxiatel says she has her own planet now, and...”

“Oh my dear girl, I am so sorry I left you behind. Are you sure you want to go home? I travelled with Susan until she grew up. She fell in love with a human. I couldn't control the TARDIS, so I couldn't go back...”

“Can we talk about something else please? For example; can I have a pancake now?”

The Doctor smiled sadly, “Anything you wish. And then we better get going, we have clothes and shoes, and all sorts of things to buy.”

 

*

 

The Doctor had been on Earth, stuck in this time frame, exiled, for some three Earth years now, and although he went to London to his club – he was a member of two, to hobnob with the government and business elite, naturally, as well as keeping his ear to the ground for UNIT, and enjoying the privilege, and also enjoyed a good feast at High Table at one or two of the Oxford colleges, he knew little of normal daily living of ordinary humans, particularly family life.

So he went to Carnaby Street, where he had enjoyed shopping with both Liz and Jo. Liz favoured Biba, but Jo had no favourites and preferred to browse all the shops. The Doctor had found some of his most favourite frilled shirts in Lord John, and his last time with Jo, a few months before Wales and her meeting of her future husband, he had found the most delicious patent knee high black boots. He tended to wear then under his trousers at UNIT, but when off world he loved to tuck in the trousers and show of their fabulousness. He loved his clothes in this incarnation. He had in his loom body too, although he slumped a little during the dark times of Koschei's increasing madness and criminality, the time of his last daughter.

He had no idea of where one bought children's clothes, and so he drove them first to Carnaby Street.

He parked on the corner and as he climbed out two rather stoned left-over hippies commented on his groovy togs, and he thanked them politely.

“Kid from a commune then?” one them asked, looking at her rather tattered, muddy flared jeans with the patches and different demin bottoms over red Wellingtons.

“The Country, certainly,” the Doctor said stiffly, guiding his tiny daughter away from the waft of weed and the risk of passive ingestion and sudden intoxication.

“Nice wheels man,” they called after him.

“Yes, she is a beauty, isn't she? Watch over her for me, there's a good chap.”

“Sure man!”

“They have strange wibbly wobbly relaxed auras and eyes,” Sanjiandrovanri commented acidly as they walked away, looking in the shops.

“I'm afraid they do, don't they? They have been using an illegal drug, a cannabinoid resin, by the smell.”

“Marijuana? Cassandra's Daddy used to partake on a Sunday, when he went into the Labour Party offices to do the books. I recognise the smell.”

“Not in front of you – her? And the little boy? I hope not!”

“Oh no Father, on his own. I just recognised the smell now. It probably made the accounts less boring. Although he loved maths. I miss him. Am I making you sad if I talk about Cassandra's life and family? I mean, you are my Father, not him...?”

The Doctor put his arm around his daughter and gave her a hug. “No my dear. You must talk about it, let it all out, ask anything you need. Only adults centuries old, academics studying certain species, should use a Chameleon Arch. Braxiatel is a fool.”

“Yeah yeah, you keep saying Father. Ushas always said it about you and Papa. And Papa said it about you. You all think little of each other. I observed other families in the Citadel and Capitol were far less confrontational and judgemental.”

“And boring no doubt. Your vocabulary is improving by the day, which is good, it means you are slowly re-emerging from Cassandra Jones and becoming a child ready for the Academy.”

“I suppose I have been speaking like a Time Tot, and I'm not any more. I feel as if I'm nine, and I was eight, but I then lived nine human years. It's very confusing. Are we looking for clothes for me here, or you?”

“Well, you my dear. And I know it must be very confusing, but as you didn't remain static, but became a baby, your body took you as it was – good job you were nine and not five, or younger, as you would have returned to Gallifrey and had to do longer in Kindergarten.”

“Three more years with the Lady Hoolie would have been wonderful!” Sanjiandrovanri shouted, jumping up and down. “But these are all very grown up clothes for posh sexy ladies, not girls,” she observed, instantly calming down and returning as far as she could to Detachment.

“No, I didn't know where else to go. Where did Cassandra's parents buy her clothes?”

“Jumble sales. Her Mum made lots. Twice a year we- they – drove to Oxford to go to the big C&A. We always had fights because I – she – didn't want to have girls clothes, she wanted to be a boy, or at least look like a boy.”

“I spent my last years at Kindergarten and my first few at the Academy saying I was a little girl. I grew my hair long and decorated my plaits with ribbons and wore Ladies gowns and uniform robes. Do you still feel Cassandra's choices?”

“Oh no, I want some lovely dresses. I always wanted lovely gowns and robes, but the ones I had got a bit dirty and stained and you never noticed. And a bit tight, I was getting fatter and you didn't notice. Ushas was into utility suits, just trousers and tops, and Uncle Braxiatel told me satin dresses weren't practical and got me dull brown and beige robes. I want pretty flowers and bright colours and shiny shoes and...”

The Doctor laughed and picked up his daughter and span her around, “And you shall have them all my dearest. But you are right, they are none here for children. Oh, I say... look!”

The were standing outside a man's retail outlet. The looked in the window at the most splendid black cloak lined with purple silk.

“The Brigadier did give me an awful lot of money...”

“Then let's get it Father!”

Inside the shop Radio 1 was playing loudly, currently the Kinks 'Lola' was blaring out. The walls were painted a crazy montage of different psychedelic patterns and the racks of clothes bright and eclectic.

“Groovy threads for an old guy,” the shop assistant said.

“Thank you, I think. I'm interested in the cloak in the window.”

“Yeah, you'll look cool man.”

As the assistant leaned over the window edge to unhook it, the Doctor asked, “I don't suppose you know where one goes to get children's clothes, do you?”

“Actually man, I do,” he replied, draping the cloak over the Doctor's shoulders. “Perfect, like it was made for you.”

“Where?”

“Marks and Sparks. At least, it's where my baby girl gets our little kids clothes from.”

“And where is that?”

“Down Oxford Street. It's huge, like their flag store. Get all you need for your little baby girl there. What do you think of your Pops in his new cloak, baby?”

“I think he looks splendid,” Sanjiandrovanri replied, grinning.

“Sure does. That's £37.99p man.”

“Um, yes, of course,” the Doctor said, fumbling for the wallet full of cash the Brigadier had given him.

 

*

They left Bessie where she was, as Oxford Street was closed to traffic apart from buses, and headed up towards the large shopping streets. Soon out of Carnaby Street, they passed Hamleys, and looking at each other and grinning, the Doctor and Sanjiandrovanri crossed the road and went inside. They spent ages looking at the Lego and Mechano and toy train sets, before the Doctor bought his tiny daughter a large fluffy blue rabbit to go with her teddy bears and soft toy dog. After that the Doctor got a little practical and began to pile up exercise books, lined, plain, and maths squared, along with pens, pencils, rulers, compass and all manner of stationary.

“What's all this for?”

“Children go to school here you know. If I don't show the Brigadier and officious busy bodies I'm teaching you myself, they will make you go back to a human school, you know?”

“Cassandra liked school – well, the leaning, the children she wasn't so sure off or fond of. Will you really teach me Father?”

“It's been a long time since you were with the irrepressible Lady Hoolie, isn't it? We need some revision and preparation if you mean it, going home and back to the Academy?”

“Of course I do Father! They will be able to get me back to my right time, won't they? Even if it's against Rassilon's Precepts, it's not actually impossible, is it?”

The Doctor grabbed the back of his neck and looked down at the tiny child looking up at him. He reached out and ruffled her fine still-human textured hair. “Well, you know my dear...”

Sanjiandrovanri pulled away from her Father to pick up the largest possible pack of felt tips. “Oh please Father, can I have this too? And this?” she added, picking up a packet of charcoal pencils. “These are the ones Cassandra always wanted, but her parents couldn't afford it. She was very good at art, and you know, I think I will be too. I like drawing still. Art is so souless at home, drawn by computer or frozen moments in time. Where is the... the feelings and spirit? I will be the first artist on Gallifrey for millennia!”

The Doctor quickly put the felt tips and charcoals into the basket, adding a foolscap sketch pad. “Of course,” he said, smiling, glad she had distracted herself from the awkward moment of discussion of her being out of time. “And I am thinking about finding a hairdresser. Would you like a new hairstyle, my dear? Your hair is still quite human, you know, and if we cut it short it should grow back properly quite quickly.”

Sanjiandrovanri fingered her fashionable bob, twisting her fingers in, and thought. Fashionable on Earth, based on a popular TV character. All the girls wanted to be Purdy, she 'kicked arse' as they said in the playground, she didn't scream or get rescued, she wasn't just a dollybird or the old women at home like in most TV, she was an action woman. But no one on Gallifrey would know that, and objectively, her hair did look at little bit like someone put a bowl over her head and cut around the edges to make the shape. Most young Time Ladies would have long hair, dressed in plaits and braids with ribbons when they started the Academy, and then, when they were older, they would pile it elaborately on their heads, dressed with pearls and jewels. Some rebels would wear it loose. Ushas did, or had practical, functional ponytails. She would get a pixie cut, Cassandra had been trying to persuade her Mum to get one. She would have hair shorter than the young Time Lords and start a trend. When they pointed at her it would be because of her hair, not because her Father was the Doctor and her Papa the Master and she had jumped a couple of centuries in the future within the transduction barrier!

 

*

 

They walked along Oxford Street, looking for Marks and Spencer and a hairdressers. It was crowded, buses and taxis were heavy and noisy, going past on both sides of the road, the carbon monoxide fumes choking. People pushed past, rude and walking fast, looking like they had somewhere better to go. Other people ambled, people from all over the world. Humans of all skin tones, languages, and cultures surrounded them. A flamboyantly dressed older man with a scruffily dressed little girl, however, did still attract attention and stares.

They found a hairdressers first, and made an appointment for later that day, and the young receptionist was able to direct them to the flagship of the popular Marks and Spencer. It took another long walk, Oxford Street seemed to go on forever. They stood outside, looking for a while, at the business, before they went inside. It was huge, but the Doctor located a store guide and they went up an escalator, then a second one, to the children's department. Sanjiandrovanri couldn't help thinking how thrilled Cassandra Jones would have been to be in Oxford Street, London, but horrified to be here, buying dresses. But although the noise and smell and thoughts of the humans around her was more than a little overwhelming, she enjoyed the looking and the choosing. The Doctor picked out a cherry red corduroy pinafore with flowers embroidered on the bib, and Sanjiandrovanri found similar ones in jade and teal. They found some matching cardigans and white and cream blouses, and Sanjiandrovanri dragged her father over to the practicalities of packets of knickers with scatterings of flowers and matching vests and a pack of seven pairs of white knee high socks. On the way back they were both drawn to the party dresses. The Doctor pulled out a dark green satin dress, with puff sleeves and cross stitching on the bodice.

“This is splendid, my dear. Almost Gallifreyan.”

“Yes Father. Can I have it? Please! For when they come for me!”

The Doctor looked down at his tiny daughter, and didn't have the hearts to point out they were still unsure what would happen. She would look lovely, in any case, in such a fabulous dress.

“Of course. Shall we go and pay?”

On the way to pay they found a denim pinafore with frills at the bottom and a incongruous question mark embroidered on the bib. Naturally, Sanji had to have it!

The Doctor peeled notes off, with some confusion, as if he were unused to spending money. The sales assistant took him for a foreign tourist, and was patient.

“It's so lovely of your Granddad to spoil you,” she said slowly and loudly to Sanjiandrovanri.

Sanjiandrovanri smiled back, but said politely, “Oh, he's my Father!”

“Oh, I'm so sorry Sir,” she said to the Doctor, blushing. As they walked away, their acute Time Lord hearing picked out her mutter to her colleague,

“Bloody foreigners, bloody disgusting, he's got to be twice the age of her mum.”

There were times to get upset about parochial views of humans, and times to smile. This was definitely the second, and they caught each other's eye and laughed.

The Doctor headed for another up escalator, and Sanji jogged to keep up. “Where now Father? How long until my hair cut?”

“We have a little more than an hour my dear girl. Look, a cafe. Are you hungry again?”

“I'm always hungry at the moment.”

The Doctor put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “That is the artron energy/matter-bio field exchange, it will pass.”

As they walked towards the cafe, the Doctor pointed to the sign for the toilets. “Would you like to put one of your new dresses on?”

The little girl jumped up and down in excitement. “Oh yes. Rather! Might I Father?”

“Go on, into the Ladies. I will wait outside.”

Sanjiandrovanri grabbed the bag and rushed inside. She was gone for a worrying long time. Women came and went, giving the Doctor suspicious looks, the strangely dressed man standing outside the Ladies. Eventually he called through the door,

“Sanji, dear? Are you in there?”

An old lady stopped her glare and turned to him with more kindly features, “Are you alright love?”

“My daughter went to put on her new dress, but she's been a long time.”

“I'll go see, love.”

Five minutes later Sanjiandrovanri emerged hand in hand with the old human woman, dressed in her red pinafore over a cream blouse, Cassandra's scruffy, muddy, red anorak on top.

“Coat! You need a new coat! I knew there was something we forgot. Why were you so long?”

“We were having a little difficulty with the buttons at the back, weren't we darling. I folded up those dirty jeans and woman's jumper at the bottom of the bag.”

“Oh. Thank you. We can just bin those,” the Doctor said to his daughter, smiling at the woman a charming smile of thanks.

“You're welcome. It's not easy without a Mummy, is it. Your daughter was telling me your ex-wife is not very nice and has just come to live with you. Good luck then,” she said to Sanjiandrovanri, before going back into the Ladies for the purpose she first came to it.

“What did you say?”

“I just made Papa into a Mamma, that's all,” Sanjiandrovanri replied cheekily, grinning up at her Father. “And he isn't, is he? He was going to kill me.”

“I don't think he really would,” the Doctor reassured hurriedly, but when one is a telepathic species, such glib lies aren't so easy to get away with, especially when the memory of your ex-husband holding your daughter by the throat, with a knife pressed to her jugular, was still fresh in your mind. He hugged her and changed the subject. “Let's get rid of those awful clothes, before they make your new ones dirty.”

“Absolutely not! That jumper belongs to Corporal Bell, and Cassandra's Mum did all the fancy patches and the extensions on those jeans, I want to keep them, to remember my human life. Please Father...”

And the security of two loving, functional, parents for nine human years was transmitted back to the Doctor, so swallowing his guilt, he just nodded. “Let's get some lunch,” said, forging his way through the tourists and British shoppers, heading for the cafe.

 

*

After a cup of tea for the Doctor and a cheese and tomato sandwich and packet of ready salted crisps with a lemonade, followed by a slice of chocolate gateau for his daughter, then a quick revisit of the children's department to choose a red wool frock coat to replace Cassandra's red anorak, the haircut followed, and they walked down the rest of Oxford Street, heading for Marble Arch, Sanjiandrovanri admiring her new short pixie cut in shop windows, the Doctor looking for shoes for children. He was momentarily distracted and bought himself a pair of patent leather ankle boots of deep purple from Top Man, where the assistant kindly pointed him in the direction of Clarks.

“I could have told you that,” his daughter replied with an impish grin. “Every child gets shoes from Clarks. They have a special measuring device to tell you how your feet have grown and what shape they are. Cassandra and her brother always went to Clarks, and everyone in her class. They are expensive, but no one minds, as growing feet need to be looked after.”

“H'm. What? Yes m'dear. I expect so. Go back 25 years and the conscription for the Second World War and they found most working men had flat feet. It was quite an eye opener in lots of ways.”

“The Beveridge Report? The Five Wants. Children from the East End who were evacuated half starving and full of lice with not one decent bit of clothing? I- Cassandra did a project.”

“Seems quite advanced for a nine year old human.”

“She was clever. Besides, her parents were in the Labour Party so she learnt the history of the Welfare State.”

“Any advanced society can be judged by how it treats its elderly, its frail, its sick and its disabled. Never forget that dear girl, if you ever go travelling.”

“Really? I just want to go home, go to the Academy and then get a career to serve, to only observe from afar.”

The Doctor looked down and smiled sadly, and ruffled her newly short hair. “Yes. Yes I know dearest. We are still waiting on the Tribunal and the High Council.”

“Any more advice Father?” she asked, not bearing the sadness in his eyes and his aura.

“Oh. If captured, always ask for a glass of water and to sit down. It will tell you if they will interview or interrogate you. Usually anyway.”

“So, if there are blind children begging in the streets, dead old people in their homes, and they don't give you a glass of water, just get back to the TARDIS.”

“No, then there will be injustice. Evil and injustice must always be fought.”

“We should just observe... but not you, obviously. You are the Doctor, Father, and... But what if it is a fixed point? Like Hitler's Third Reich or the Skaronian Neutronic Wars?”

The Doctor smiled. “Then yes, then, get back to the TARDIS with alacrity. Is this Clarks Shoe Shop?”

“Yes? I like those shiny red sandals!”

The Doctor bought her the enclosed sandals and a pair of patent leather mary-janes in black as well as another pair with a t-bar and embroidery of a flower on each heel and toe. The Doctor made her wear them and put the old wellies in the bag.

They made their way back to Bessie, Sanjiandrovanri now in a pretty pinafore and shiny shoes with a tailored coat over the top, with a new hair cut. The last bit of Cassandra Jones had gone, she looked expensive, like a young Time Tot might dress off world – if they were allowed of world – Sanjiandrovanri thought as she admired her reflection in the shop windows they passed. She held her father's hand tightly among all the throngs of colourful humans, skipping lightly. She couldn't remember going shopping with him on Gallifrey. She supposed Papa had, once, and maybe her nurse. Clothes seemed to just be produced. Many of her classmates at Kindergarten had shopping expeditions with their parents and nurse, sometimes even off world in the Traken Union or among the People. The Dyson Sphere of the People was considered the best place for recreational shopping. The closest she ever got was being parked in a museum or mall cafe with a book and a drink while her Uncle had looked for books or made arrangements for others to get books from other planets.

As they went the skipping turned to walking and then dragging her feet. The Doctor stopped and scooped her up over his shoulder, putting the shopping in his other hand. Snuggled into his shoulder and neck, twisting his blond and white curls with her finger, she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early 1970s still swinging, groovy, London along with some other 1970s British institutions like Little Chef that I'm sure none of my readers are old and/or British enough to remember ;) Let me know if you do :)


	17. Swings and Things

Sanjiandrovanri awoke in Bessie, the West Way whipping past as they exited London and headed back to Buckinghamshire and UNIT HQ. She wriggled upright.

“Oh. You promised a posh tea.”

“You needed your sleep my dear girl. I can take you another day. I'll take you to the Savoy. Splendid High Teas they do. Or perhaps I can get the old girl working enough to just pop back 50 years and take you to Lyons Tea House.”

“Or 50 years forward to TeaBucks. Uncle Braxiatel always came home with a TeaBucks carton when he had been saving books from the twenty-first century dark times.”

“Brax knows nothing. Idiot! A paper cup of processed green tea! I'm talking about three tier plates of dainty little sandwiches with the crust cut off and tiny cakes and scones with jam and cream washed down with a pot of finest Darjeeling tea with milk and sugar.”

“Sounds nice.” She wriggled again.

“What's wrong child? Ants in your pants?”

Sanjiandrovanri giggled at that. “Cassandra's Daddy used to say that. No, my legs are bored. They want to move!”

“We'll turn off the A40 in a while, and then we're find a place to park and you can stretch your legs. You probably have cramp from sleeping so heavily in a small place.”

The Doctor had planned to just stop by some woodland and go for a peaceful walk, but as they came to a small village he saw a child's play park. He had barely stopped Bessie and parked her before his tiny daughter had leapt out and was running towards the swings. He climbed out of his yellow roadster and followed her across the grass. She was already climbing a very high, very narrow, very dangerous, looking slide. He just made it to the bottom of it as she came whooshing down it and fell of the end, landing on her rear with what looked like a painful bump. She laughed. He pulled her up.

“I'm going on the swings,” she said, rushing across the playground. The Doctor followed. Sanjiandrovanri was already getting herself quite high on the swing by pumping her legs. “I love swings! There's no one else here Father! Why don't you swing too!”

The Doctor smiled indulgently and sat on the swing next to her.

“It's like flying!” she called, as she went past him, backwards and forwards, until the crossbar was rocking and juddering, and it looked like she might actually go all the way over the bar. She stopped moving her legs and began to slow, taking a huge leap and landing on her feet, stumbling slightly, making the Doctor jump.

“Sanjiandrovanri!” he cried, leaping up.

“I'm fine. I always... Cassandra always did that too. She loved swings. Even though her grandfather took her to play parks after... you know, being special. Not then, but other times. There were three on the estate, one through the woods, and one on the common. She went there on her bike a lot. Or I did. I feel I did.”

“And you did my dear, in human form. You will retain the memories, and the feelings, happy and sad. Why did Cassandra like swinging? Why do you? Didn't you ever go to a park?”

Sanjiandrovanri face lit up, in joyful surprise. “There are swings on Gallifrey?”

“The Citadel and the Capitol and all the cities have parks and play parks and botanical gardens and arboretums and...” the Doctor began, and then, smiling, clarified, “Swings and roundabouts and see-saws. Did neither your Uncle or Ushas never take you? What about when you visited your sisters?”

“Oh, Hypatia and Portia never see me, I've not seen them since the day you left and Papa was arrested. Which reminds me Father, you still haven't really said much about Susan. Hypatia will want to know. She said I was a poor substitute.”

“Don't you worry about that my dear girl, I will personally handwrite a letter for you to give to your sister about your niece. I will explain it all. You don't have to be a messenger girl to someone who thinks so little of you. Now,” the Doctor said, sitting back down on his swing and rocking himself to and fro slightly with his foot on the pavement underneath, “you were telling me what is so wonderful about swinging?”

“Don't you know Father?! It's like flying! You can go so high, feel the wind in your face and it makes you smile. And it is like rocking too, rocking while you are flying, and we know that only disturbed children rock.”

“Who told you that?” the Doctor asked, angry.

His tiny daughter flinched a little at his anger. “Cassandra's Mum shouted at me... her, if she rocked. But everyone tells you at home to be still – stay still, sit upright, don't moan, still hands...”

The Doctor felt his own hand wobble slightly and give a little flap. He remembered the freedom of his first regeneration, his first regenerated body, embracing the joy of being who he was, flapping for joy, wringing with despair, and both when thinking. His youngest took after him in ways he couldn't imagine, ways he was ashamed of himself for never noticing. Koschei's father had forced them into a third child, and he had, in truth, resented her, and the elder two too, in their own ways, had taken after their Papa a little too much.

“Who is everyone?”

“Coordinator Aris, Ushas, Uncle Braxiatel...”

“Yes, he said the same thing to me, so did your grandfather. Now, you listen to me Sanjiandrovanri – you be yourself. Even if you have to hide yourself at times, don't bury her. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“I think so Father. But I want to swing again!” she yelled, and getting back on her swing, was soon soaring high again. The Doctor joined her, tipping his head back as his swing sailed backwards, leaning into the momentum to laugh as the swing went forward again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to all of you Brits out there who remember the lethal playparks before the 1990s and health and safety :)


	18. Minister

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1970s political language and references to British race relations below

The Brigadier seemed anxious and upset when he came into the Doctor's laboratory the day following the promised high tea at the Savoy in London. The Doctor was still running tests on the mutant slime from Wales while Sanjiandrovanri was building a complex train set with a city one end and a village and farm the other under the tables and benches.

“Damned red tape! Such nonsense!” he blustered as he came in, slapping down a black folder marked 'Top Secret' and hitting it with his swagger stick.

The eyeglass of the Doctor's popped out and fell into his hand as he said, “My dear chap. Whatever is the matter?”

“CI9 have learnt of your daughter and kicked it upstairs to the PM. She is sending someone to take a look. Honestly. I went through so much red tape to get you on my staff, and they understand now I am personally responsible for you. I think that includes your offspring, don't you?”

Although Sanjiandrovanri had learnt over the past few days that the Brigadier's bark was worst than his bite, that all his shouting meant nothing at all, she made Thomas and Percy have a major rail incident on the tracks below the Bunson burners and grabbed her nearest soft toy. Being 'looked at' did not sound good.

“Shall we sit down and talk about it. Have a cup of tea. What exactly is the problem? Even bus drivers and nurses from the West Indies or factory workers from the Indian sub-continent can bring their children over, I can't see that it would be a problem. Is it?”

“Half of Cassandra's class came from the New Commonwealth,” Sanjiandrovanri said, standing up, still clutching her off-white toy dog. “Their parents were invited to come over. Father helps defend this country, how can they want to lock me up?”

The Brigadier looked down and awkwardly patted her on the head. “There's no need to worry young lady. It's just a lot of form filling and curiosity. Have you done something to your hair?”

“I had it cut. A week ago. Honestly Uncle Alistair!”

“I'm not having my daughter prodded and poked like some specimen...” the Doctor began angrily.

“Nor will I, Doctor, I assure you...”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Sergeant Benton said, pushing the door open and tentatively coming in.

“What is if Sergeant Benton?”” the Brigadier roared. “I'm having a private discussion here!”

“Yes Sir. Only the Minister is here. Bell has given him a cup of tea in your office, but he is growing restless.”

“I expected him the afternoon!”

“It's fine. We're fine, aren't we Sanji dear? Just this once, do please remember all the Lady Hoolie and your Nurse taught you.”

“Yes Father,” she replied politely, and curtseyed to the Brigadier. “Don't worry Uncle Alistair.”

Benton turned to go, but winked at the small child putting on her Time Lord airs and graces, “Love the train set young lady,” he said, grinning widely.

She smiled back, before composing her features.

“I'll go and see him in my office, and then bring him here, Doctor. Are you sure you are all right about this? There are places and organisations other than UNIT he could send her to. I won't let that happen, I assure you!”

“What is he talking about?” Sanji asked quietly, squeezing her soft toy even tighter.

“I have no idea, my dear, but it won't come to that. Until the Time Lord High Council or even the Tribunal, get back to me, what can we do? We'll just have to barricade ourselves in the TARDIS if the worst comes, but trust the Brigadier, he won't let anything bad happen.” The Doctor pulled her into a hug. “Now, why don't you continue your train set. Perhaps you need to build some docks next. I believe Sodor has rather a big dock with sentient cranes too.”

 

*

 

Forty minutes later the Brigadier returned with a short, dumpy, looking man in a pin striped suit and a striped tie. Sanjiandrovanri thought it was probably an 'old school tie' from a posh school. 'Old Boys Network' and 'Jobs For The Boys' were phrases Cassandra's Daddy had used. He had stern eyes and a frowny face and a very smug, self-satisfied, aura. Sanjiandrovanri wriggled further under the bench.

“Hello,” he boomed. “Ah, Doctor, is it? Now, I know you have done invaluable things for the country, but can we really expect you to bring your family? Here we have proper channels of immigration, don't you know?”

Sanjiandrovanri heard the Brigadier stifle an annoyed noise with a cough and felt anger rise in the Doctor's artron aura.

“Hello,” she heard her father reply. “So nice to meet you. What I have done with UNIT was for the entire planet, not just Britain, don't you know? And I'm sure the Brigadier has kept you informed, so you do know full well, my daughter was here already, and we are currently awaiting her transport home. What on Earth do you intend to do?” he went on, managing to sound both angry and powerful, and ever-so polite, all at the time time. He'd not sounded like that on Gallifrey. He used to stumble over his words. She felt a bloom of pride in her father. “Detain and deport her? Deport her to where? Detain a child? Alone? In an immigration centre? Surely your great British ideals of fair play and decency wouldn't allow that, even for a Ugandan child refugee, would you?”

“Steady on old chap, no one is suggested anything of the kind. The government just needs to-”

“Satisfy its curiosity and have a look at a child Time Lord, I suppose. Pointless exercise, but if you insist.”

Sanjiandrovanri could feel her father's increasing anger and frustration at the human, at all humans, he was feeling as angry as Papa. The pride popped like a balloon, and she remembered the Lady Hoolie telling her feelings and memories could be popped and shared, or built into walls. She tried to build a wall of defence balloons as she picked up one of the toy train engines and squeezed it in her hand, feeling the corners and the wheels and the funnel digging into her palm and fingers.

“Where is the child, anyway?” the frightening man asked.

“Sanji, my dear, can you come out please.”

Sanjiandrovanri wriggled out, still holding Percy, and came to stand beside her father. She twisted her other hand's fingers into the soft green velvet of his smoking jacket and buried her face in his tummy, her face enveloped in tickly frills and his own unique scent, that had not changed, despite two regenerations, and the spicy-sweet cologne he was wearing. Unlike Papa had been, he was angry for her, not at her. He made her feel safe against the strange, pompous, little, human male. Her father put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.

“Let's have a look at you my girl.”

“Steady on Minister! She's not an exhibit in a zoo, you know!” the Brigadier snapped.

“It's okay Brigadier. Isn't it my dear? Come on Sanji, show us your pretty face.”

She took a deep breath, and feeling the reassuring pressure of her father's arm around her shoulders, turned her face away from her father's tummy, hearing Aris' stern instruction of Detachment and Control, to look at the short, fat, frightening, human who might take her away. Cassandra Jones' parents had met campaigning for immigrants rights, and against racism, and she had gone to lots of multiracial events as a small human child, still she knew not all British people liked immigrants, and that was apparently what she was now, an illegal immigrant from another planet! She hadn't quite looked at it like that before, but unlike the Vietnamese boat people or the African Asians, she wasn't quite sure where she could be sent back to? To France? Would they sent her to Germany? Would countries keep doing that until she came right back around? Or would the stick her on an Apollo Rocket and leave her on the Moon?

The man looked down at her as if she might be an animal in the zoo, just as the Brigadier suggested. “She's very small,” he said. “How old is she?”

“Nine years old, thereabouts,” the Doctor replied. “Yes, she has always been small for her age. Her sisters were too. Probably genetic. I wasn't always this tall, you know.” He grabbed the back of his neck, and Sanji knew her father was feeling nervous too, just hiding it behind his aura of arrogance and anger. She wondered if Papa was frightened on the inside too?

“Well then, Miss, um... Doctor? What are you up to?”

Sanjiandrovanri looked up at her father, confused, but he nodded and smiled. 

“I've been building a train track and towns and villages and farms. I was about to build a dock. It's Sodor.”

“Sodor?”

“From Thomas the Tank Engine, you know. You must have heard of the books?” the Brigadier interjected.

“Ah yes, I believe Nanny reads them to my boys,” he replied.

Sanji felt her father bite his tongue to prevent a snort of derision. Was it funny?

Yes, yes it was. Time Lords had nurses, but not all Gallifreyans were Time Lords, and that had seemed perfectly fine. But Britain was a democracy and government ministers made a big thing on the news about being just one of the people. This man was being a hypocrite. Besides, nurses or no nurses, Time Tots' parents read to them. This man didn't care about his children either. She hated him even more!

“And you're happy here? You want to stay?”

“I want to go home to Gallifrey and go to the Academy, that is what I want. We are waiting for the High Council of Time Lords to make a decision,” she replied primly, releasing her grip on her father and stepping forward, out of his embrace, and tipped up her chin imperiously. “Are you going to lock me up while we wait?” He looked startled at her reply, so she dropped a small curtsey for effect. “Minister, Sir,” she added politely.

The minister looked confused, and glanced at the Brigadier, and then the Doctor, before he said, “She has good manners and bearing, you must be proud Doctor.”

“I am,” her father replied smugly.

“But school? Shouldn't the little girl be in school?” he asked. He seemed like he was a man to always have to final word and be in control, Sanjiandrovanri decided. She supposed that was why he was a politician.

“The Doctor and I discussed that,” the Brigadier replied curtly. “There is a village primary down the road. However, we felt it might be best if the Doctor educate her here for now, in preparation for going home. If the Time Lords won't fetch her, we will look at a school, probably a good girls prep.”

A boarding school? That was news to Sanjiandrovanri! Oh well, could she really live in the TARDIS and the lab forever?

Susan did, a small voice whispered in the back of her mind. He took Susan, not you.

“What happens with the next incident then?” the minister asked the Brigadier. Sanjiandrovanri wondered at the word incident. She supposed they meant Papa or more mutated slime by big businesses putting profit before the planet. It happened a lot in level 4 and 5 societies. They out-grew it if they survived, she guessed. UNIT would help Earth survive, especially with the Doctor's help. Father's help. Sometimes she felt she had to see him as the Doctor. All those stories he told, all those planets he saved. That was something far, far, bigger than a father and a part time defence lawyer and alien rights campaigner, far beyond the reach of a younger son of a lesser House married above his station into a grand House. All that was gone now, Lungbarrow buried and Oakdown in denial and rejection.

“We have enough staff to look after her, or get her away safely,” the Brigadier replied assuredly. “I have an entire safety contingency plan in place, Minister, please don't worry.”

“I expect to hear any day about her safe return home, anyway,” the Doctor added. She was glad, as she didn't like to think about 'incidents' coming to the UNIT HQ.

“Very well. Nice to meet you Miss... Sanji... um. Yes. Be good for the Doctor, and do as the Brigadier orders if you need to. Show me you paperwork now, please, Brigadier, for these contingency and schooling plans of yours. I hope you are not expecting Her Majesty's Government to pick up the tab.”

Once they left, the Doctor sat down and laughed. “What an pompous, idiotic, oaf!” he said. Sanjiandrovanri climbed up onto his lap.

“They won't send me away to school, will they?”

“I thought that was what you wanted?”

“To the Academy, yes. Not to a school like Malory Towers or something! All those human girls! What if I have an accident? What would they make of my alien body? And I'm not sure I like sardines or tinned pineapple.”

The Doctor ruffled her short hair, stifling a grin. “It won't happen.”

“Good.” She snuggled into a hug. “I like being with you. I missed you when you went off with Susan the day they arrested Papa.”

She couldn't see her father's stricken face. 

But she felt the feeling of his guilt.

She smiled into his shirt's frills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there is always a pompous comedy figure of a minister getting in the way and making life hell for the Brigadier, so I thought, why not one more :)
> 
> Anyone spot the veiled references to Torchwood and to the Windrush scandal?


	19. Metebelis Three

Sanjiandrovanri decided her science project would be on crystals and their applications. Soon the lab, the console room, and the bedroom she shared with the Doctor, were covered in growing crystals, geology maps of places on Earth and various other planets, notations of molecular structures in English and Gallifreyan common circular and High Gallifreyan mathematical scripture. She wrote paragraphs on crystalline and silicon intelligence and programming, along with healing and telepathic properties of various crystals and their possible artron programming and made jewellery from semi precious Earth stones, and even wore amethyst to keep her calm and put rose quartz under her pillow to help her sleep. For xeno-anthropology she wrote far more on religious and cultural significance of different rocks, stones, and crystals, and realised that she liked anthropology and xeno-theology even more than Gallifreyan ancient history.

As time went on she began to notice that the Brigadier, Sergeant Benton, Carol Bell, and even Mike Yates, talked a lot about someone called Jo with the Doctor. This Jo was getting married, and Carol was maid of honour, and Mike seemed very sad, as he perhaps wanted to marry this 'Jo'.

It seemed Jo had been the Doctor's assistant and there was also much discussion about getting a new one for the Doctor.

“Nonsense,” the Doctor would reply. “My daughter can help!”

Normally, she was reading or writing her own projects, or doing maths equations the Doctor set, or playing, so everyone said 'nonsense' back.

Once he had grown cross and asked her to name every piece of equipment in the lab, recite some basic physics and maths, and identify the Welsh glowing green slime.

“Yes, well, we have rules on child labour!” the Brigadier had responded huffily and left.

“He misses his own daughter,” the Doctor had whispered sadly, more to himself than her, so she kept quiet. Besides, she had overheard gossip in the guard room and the refectory about the Brigadier's wife running away and taking his little daughter with her. She gathered little Kate Lethbridge Stewart was younger than her, only five years old. That was far older than she had been when the Doctor had runaway from her. From Gallifrey. She meant Gallifrey.

But today the Brigadier said, “Have you given thought to Jo and Professor Jones wedding present? I don't know about your people, but it's de-rigour here. I've just received a copy of the wedding list from Jo's mother in Singapore. Pop by my office to have you look, won't you.”

“What? Splendid, old chap. Naturally,” Father replied.

Sanji didn't think he had heard a word. “Who is Jo?” she asked cheekily, to get him to pay attention. “Why is she getting married? I mean, when?”

“Josephine Grant was a highly trained operative and assigned to the Doctor. She even travelled with him in that damned infeasible, infernal, machine of his.”

“The TARDIS, Uncle Alistair? She's not infernal!”

“Sorry Sanji. Doctor?”

“H'm, what? Dear Jo. She was more of a hindrance than a help in the lab. But she was skilled in many ways.”

Sanjiandrovanri looked so sharply with curiosity and anger at her Father, he instantly replied to her transmitted horror,

“Not like that my dear girl, not like that. I believe Mike was the one who had an eye for her.”

“What?” the Brigadier said, startled, looking sharply at the little girl and then the Doctor. Sometimes he felt he caught something going on above his head, silently, telepathically. He had had the feeling with the Master and the Doctor too. He didn't like it. Still, he blustered on, hiding his hurt, “Yes, poor chap. Now, about this Wedding List – the master-copy is in Harrods.”

The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, “Well now, I bet the lovely, equalitarian, Professor Jones and his friends at the Nut Hutch will have something to say about that. Jo's mother taking over, is she?”

Was there something wrong with that? Parents helped you choose a spouse, and together, all four would plan the ceremony and celebrations, and would freely give you to the other, tying you together with ribbons to represent the cords of telepathic bonds so you might cherish each other, regardless of regeneration.

Who could freely give her?

The Brigadier laughed too. “Now you mention it, perhaps Jo doesn't even know about this list. What would they even do with a tea service or a toaster in the Amazon Rain Forest? I think I shall give her my old army knife. Much more necessary.”

“Indeed. Where is she, is she ever coming back before the big day?”

“Gone out to Singapore, to her parents. Her father got a posting there, didn't she tell you?”

“We didn't really talk about her family. So many other things to discuss. I must get her a special present, now you mention it. I shall give it some thought.”

 

*

 

Supper that night was porridge and fruit, yet again. If they didn't eat at the Refectory or the Officer's Mess, it always was. Still, it wasn't jelly babies, and she was sure the Lady Hoolie would approve of such nutrition. He read to her while she ate. They were working their way through the Narnia books, stopping ever so often to discuss morality or bravery or temporal anomalies and pan-dimensions. Although, as this was 'A Horse and His Boy', comparative social development and belief systems were the order of the day. Sanji remembered reading of an entire universe peopled by sentient horses and ponies, but her Father thought it was just a story from the Dark Time, like the Vampires and the Bow-Ships, or the Death Zone, or even from the Time Before.

But tonight she asked more about Jo Grant, and asked for a photo.

She had blonde hair like straw and a wide, smily, mouth with twinkling eyes that made Sanjiandrovanri think this Jo was a lovely person.

She listened attentively to more stories of true adventure, curling up with her teddy bears and floppy white dog, her porridge growing cold and her fruit salad warm, while her father told her of Omega, The Omega, of meeting his past selves, and of Jo's bravery and cleverness. After she brushed her teeth and had got into bed, she asked for more, so she learnt of some Lurmans and a Miniscope, the very Miniscope the Doctor had campaigned for the High Council to ban throughout the cosmos.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “one day I really ought to go back, the ordinary working people seemed stunted intellectually and denied sentient rights, and thinking about it now, I think a revolution was going on, and not one to benefit the ordinary people. I should really see...”

“Like you and Jamie did all the time,” she prompted.

“Yes, exactly like that. Now go to sleep my dear, I must think on a present for Jo. You know, all the travels we had – remind me to tell you about Peladon, she could have been a Time Lady, so dignified she was then, I was so proud of her, another night – were only an accident. I was trying to get to Metebelis 3.”

“Metebelis 3?” Sanji said around a yawn. “Did you get there? I thought the CIA and Tribunal made you go places...” she broke off to yawn again, and curled up around her toys, snuggling down in her camp bed at the foot of the Doctor's large one. “Isn't that the blue planet? Aren't their crystals supposed to be full of healing and love?”

“Yes. Good night my dear,” the Doctor said, distracted, kissing her absent-mindedly on her forehead. “Something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new,” he muttered as his daughter fell into a sleep.

Once she was, he touched her temple to make sure none of Cassandra's darker memories would trouble her, but she was on Sodor, riding in Percy, looking for a lost rabbit. Happy she was safe, he got up and thoughtfully wandered to the console room.

 

*

 

Sanji was awoke from a rather pleasant dream where she and a six foot white rabbit in a top hat were taking tea on the side of a mountain, they had made the tea from Percy's tender, by a strange sensation, half in the pit of her stomach, half in the telepathic centres of the brain. A tingle and the tummy flip she got as Cassandra when they drove to her auntie and went over the canal bridges. She yawned and sat up and strained in the dark to listen.

The TARDIS was thrumming and vibrating.

Were they in flight?

The one and only time she had been in an actual TT Capsule that was traversing Vortex she had been a human infant, and so had no recollection at all.

Curious, she slipped out of bed and ran, barefoot, out of the bedroom and down the corridor to the console room.

Her father was leaning on the console, the time rotor going steadily up and down, to indicate they were in flight. The rotor wobbled at an alarming rate. She was sure it wasn't healthy.

“Are we going back to Gallifrey?” she asked from the doorway.

“What?” the Doctor looked up, startled. “No. Metebelis 3. It occurred to me that a blue crystal would make the perfect wedding gift.”

“I thought you said you never got there.”

“Well, I did, in the end, just before I went down to Wales, not long before you joined us. However, it was early on in its history, I would guess. I was attacked by a flying reptile, and there was little to see but rocks and dust and ferns. The blue light was breath taking, but sadly I had to make a hasty retreat. I have set the coordinates for some several millennia later. Just as a mathematical exercise, you wouldn't mind checking my calculations would you?”

“I'm a Time Tot, Father.”

“Not any more dear, you are a year older.”

“But I've not been to the Academy.”

“This is part of your education, my dear, I'm not asking you to verify my calculations.”

“I would need spacial-temporal books for the right Galaxy, Father.”

“You know the way to the library, dear,” her Father said, scribbling down a long string of coordinates and calculations and handing them to her.

Sanjiandrovanri got all the way to the library and spread out the books of tables and columns of figures before she thought about it. She bet he never asked Susan. From what she could gather, neither her niece nor her father knew what they were doing or where they were going.

She looked up at the ceiling. “You know where we are going, don't you. You take Father where he needs to go. It can't be a coincidence, all those monsters and dictators and big businesses he has defeated, can it? But I'm only little, so I trust you will keep me safe, my Lady TARDIS.”

She then rushed back to the bedroom, and pulled on her green satin party frock, a baggy cardigan she wore as a dressing gown that had belonged to her Father's former body, and her wellies that had once belonged to her human self, and went back to the console room just as the dematerialisation sequence started, and the sound of time and space ripped apart as they left Vortex filled the room. The rotor stopped with a ping, announcing their safe landing.

“All fine, I think, Father,” she said, crossing her fingers behind her back and grinning.

“You look different, today,” her Father said, nodding at her answer.

“I'm not on Earth, am I?” she answered. “Can we go outside?” she asked, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.

“Of course,” the Doctor replied, throwing on his cape over his velvet jacket. “You know how to open the door.”

 

*

 

“It's not very blue!” 

“No, it's not. Is was, in its prehistory. Providing we got it right. And next time, remind me to remind you to check the atmosphere for oxygen and radiation before we go outside.”

Sanjiandrovanri was busy splashing in muddy puddles among the scrubs of grass and spiky bushes that were scattered over what was some kind of heathland. It was drizzling coldly.

“We could be on Earth.”

“Definitely not my dear. I do know we're not even in the same galaxy. We are in the right galaxy for Metebelis.”

Sanjiandrovanri ran off ahead, scrambling up a hill. “Terraformed?” she called back. She reached the brow. “Sheep!” she yelled.

“Sheep?” repeated the Doctor. “Now, that's very unlikely...” he came to stand beside his small daughter. “Yes. Sheep,” he agreed, puzzled.

“Terraformed. Uncle Braxiatel says humans are like rabbits. Or rats.”

“Does he indeed?”

“Oh yes.” She skidded down the hill. “There's a cave up there. Maybe we can find a crystal for Jo and go. I understand the humans in the 1970s, but I'm sure post exodus ones are even scarier.”

“They seem to be sheep farmers, Sanji. Nothing to worry about.”

But she wasn't listening, she had run on into the cave, although it was dark. The Doctor followed, pulling a torch from his pocket. The walls of the cave twinkled blue in its light.

“Crystals,” breathed Sanji. “We need to find a big one.”

The Doctor wondered about why they were already mined, cut, and polished and then left on roughly hewn shelves, but kept his curiosity to himself. He felt suddenly cold, as if some great psychic entity was watching them. He waited while he daughter scanned them, eyes closed, touching with her palms and fingers, until she picked one.

“This. This is full of love, and power, and healing. Just what your friend and her special friend need. Will you go to her wedding? Can I come? If I'm still with you? Do we have to go back straight away or can we go somewhere else?” she chattered as she took the crystal from the shelf, slid it into her father's pocket, took his hand and skipped beside him all the way back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor looked about him as he ushered her inside.

The TARDIS dematerialised, the sound of the rip in the fabric of space-time as it entered the Vortex travelling on the wind. High on the ridge of hills above the heathland, fields, and cave entrance, it was watched as it vanished, a eight-legged black creature on a wooden litter hissed in anger, before turning to her slaves, and snapped, telepathically, in a high-pitched voice, “Take me back! We are too late!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little prequel for The Planet of the Spiders, as no doubt you've noticed.
> 
>  
> 
> As I said in my original notes, this is for me, reclaiming the character, but I am curious to the number of hits I get each time I post. It might not seem a lot in comparison to a Rose/10 or something, but it is far more than I expected! If someone would like to comment and reassure me people aren't coming here on the Doctor/Master tag and then back-buttoning immediately as I suspect, it would be a kindness.


	20. Home Educating

A battered grey Ford Anglia pulled up at the gatehouse at UNIT HQ and a skinny middle-aged man in an old sixties style skinny suit and knitted tie and thick, horn rimmed, glasses, wound down the window.

“Can't park there Sir,” the young soldier, Private Dixon, said.

“I have come to see the little alien girl.”

“What?” Dixon exclaimed, startled

“I've been contacted by the Minister of Education. Oh, don't worry,” the man smiled, “I'm not a journalist. I'm from the LEA, EHE Department, I'm the EHE Monitor for the area. My boss tried to make an appointment, but couldn't get the correct phone number.”

“Wait there Sir.” Dixon when into the gatehouse to make a call to Sergeant Benton for advice, then popped his head back through the door. “What's your name?” he called.

“Peter Richards,” the man said, climbing out of his car and lighting a rolled up cigarette. He coughed.

 

*

 

Benton knocked on the laboratory door, before walking in. The Doctor was sat on a stool reading a file marked 'UNIT: India, Top secret', while his small daughter was stood in front of a child sized plastic easel filling in a very complicated looking quadratic type equation, the sort Benton didn't remember doing until he was well into secondary school. He didn't recognise all the symbols either, but whether that was because they were Time Lord or because he was never very good at maths, he couldn't tell.

“Can I help you Sergeant?” the Doctor asked quietly, placing the file down under a pile of papers and printouts concerning various official experiments.

“There's a man at the gate, says he's from the Local Education Authority, the Elected Home Education Monitor. Didn't know there was such a thing, but he says his boss was contacted by our visitor from the ministry, and he's been sent to check up on little Sanji.”

“I don't want to be looked at again!” Sanjiandrovanri snapped, throwing down her chalk.

“I don't think this man means any harm. He's only doing his job. Why don't you fetch some of your projects and essays and artwork from the TARDIS, my dear, while I put the kettle on,” the Doctor reassured. “Show him in Sergeant Benton, show him in.”

 

*

 

Mr Richards reminded Sanjiandrovanri of the two men teachers at Cassandra Jones' primary school, gentle and approachable and encouraging. She spent a long time showing him her projects and her crystals. After a while of asking the Doctor and her questions about the Gallifreyan side of the syllabus the Doctor had devised, he asked for some examples of the English essays and stories she had written.

Once her father had left them, Mr Richards pulled his chair up closer to Sanjiandrovanri's at the workbench and coughed and then said,

“Isn't it boring here alone my dear? Wouldn't you prefer to be with other children?”

“Well... I haven't seen my Father for so long, it is nice being with him. At home I didn't really have many friends at Kindergarten and when I was... um, have they told you how I was here?”

Mr Richards smiled warmly. “Something about you being made to be human by your species science. Fascinating, I must say.”

“Well Cassandra... I... she was... called Cassandra. She didn't have many friends either. So maybe not.”

“Are you sure? I understand the long term plan is to put you into a boarding school if you cannot return to your own planet. My people... the Education Board. We know of a school that might be far better for you than something the Brigadier might choose for your Father. You can continue your advanced science studies with other children like you.”

Sanjiandrovanri struggled and squirmed in her chair, feeling uncomfortable. A weird alarm was going of in the back of her mind and in her tummy, a bit like when Cassandra's grandfather wanted to take her to the play park alone in his car or when she met Papa. “Children like me?” she asked slowly.

“Children not of Earth, stuck here.”

“What? I think I should ask Father.”

“You cannot. It is above this level of UNIT's knowledge. Even the Brigadier does not have clearance. Only us at the special... Education Department. We answer only to the Queen. If you tell your father or anyone here you will be breaking the Official Secret Act...”

Sanjiandrovanri had been living in the UNIT headquarters and around UNIT staff long enough to know that the OSA was a big deal, and breaking it meant prison or worse. “I don't know. Like I said, I like being with my Father. I haven't much so far in my life, you know. Besides, can't you get clearance if Father gets bored and wants me in a human boarding school?”

“I'm afraid we would have to fetch you in secret.” Mr Richards pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and handed her a card with his name and a telephone number. It was written over a logo that was a stylised T. Sanjiandrovanri guessed incorrectly that the T stood for Teaching something.

“If you ever want to go to school and be with other children like you, please call me. But remember the Official Secret Act, you can't tell your Father or the Brigadier.”

“What's it called?” Sanjiandrovanri asked, curious.

“The Torchwood Institute. It's in the Highlands of Scotland. Now, not a word.” Mr Richards stood up and turned spoke to the Doctor, much to Sanjiandrovanri's relief as the squirming in her tummy and tingling in her brain was growing worst by the second as she imagined dark, scary, Victorian buildings on a windy moor along with thin gruel and dry bread and butter. Her father was reading her Jane Eyre for a change from more comforting nursery stories and children's fiction.

“Ah, thank you Doctor,” Mr Richards said with a smile as her father approached them with bundles of papers. He sounded the same kind man, but Sanjiandrovanri didn't feel quite so safe any more with the Education Board man. She wondered if telling Benton or Bell were cheating, as he hadn't told her not to. But they were under the Brigadier, and if he didn't know about the Torchwood Institute, they definitely wouldn't. She did not like being told to keep secrets by a grown-up. Look where it got poor Cassandra? Still, she could just lose the card and never ring. She doubted Mr Richards sincerity now as he continued saying to her Father, 

“You have a very bright young daughter.” He glanced quickly at the English written projects and stores, and then smiled again. “Very accomplished compared to a human child her age. Now, the only concern we have at the LEA, is human or not, a child needs companionship. Other children to play with. Your daughter is very still and serious, she needs to stretch her wings and let go now and then. This is something I would say to a human home educated child too. There is a Brownies pack at the nearby village church hall, just for a suggestion. Perhaps you have others?”

The Doctor was startled as his tiny daughter answered with the dignity of a Prydonian decades older, “My Father takes me to the village play-park several times a week. I do play there and talk to children.”

“So there you go, Mr Richards. Allow me to escort you to your car. Sanji my dear girl, I think this calls for tea and cake. Get your bag and shoes and meet me in Bessie.”

“Yes Father,” she replied and jumped off the very high stool and skipped, quite childlike, to the TARDIS and its hatstand where her new red, bigger-on-the-inside, bag and shiny black Mary-janes were waiting.

 

*

 

About a mile from UNIT, Peter Richards stopped his car in a lay-by beside the deep beech woods. A man stepped out of the shadows behind an oak tree and walked towards the Ford Anglia, his long, old-fashioned coat flapping behind him, despite the August heat. As he did so, Richards slipped into the passenger seat. The man got into the drivers seat and turned to Richards.

“Well?”

Richards took of the glasses and handed them to the man. “All recorded as per orders Sir. A few months and we might be able to get her to the Institute with the other alien children to harvest her knowledge. Perhaps when her Father is next on a UNIT operation?”

Without a word, the other man pocketed the glasses and started the car and drove them away.

Back to Torchwood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another sinister little prequel :)
> 
> As I get hits but no kudos or comments I only assume people are arriving for the Doctor/Master tags and backspacing in disappointment. Oh well, I am writing this for me, reclaiming my old character back from male dominated nineties fans so that's fine :)


	21. India

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor goes yeti hunting in India for UNIT India, and takes his tiny daughter with him...

Sanjiandrovanri watched the ground tip away as the plane took off, her tummy turning backflips and her ears popping. Her Father had given her some boiled sweets to suck, but she'd nearly choked on them. The aeroplane banked and the air stewardess in her brightly coloured sari announced that they might undo their seatbelts and may smoke. She then began to go through a safety talk, another lady showing the location of the emergency exits and oxygen.

_The little Time Tot squeezed her Father's hand so hard he looked at her, startled. She quickly established a link and transmitted in a panic,_

_This is so primitive. A thin tube of steel powered by combustion petroleum turbines._

_It's all fine my dear. We are perfectly safe. I find it exciting. I love alien tech. And it is the safest form of human transport statistically. Currently at least._

_But smoking! In this space! Why couldn't we take the TARDIS?_

_Do you have enough control of your lungs, liver, and kidneys to filter out the nicotine?_

_I don't know..._

_Relax, close your eyes dear, and I will talk you through..._

Sanjiandrovanri slept for hours, opening her eyes to pink clouds and a the rising sun of dawn. She looked out of the window and saw tiny snow capped purple mountains and both green and dusty yellow valleys below, a giant river snaking away from the mountains through the plains, valleys and tiny cities. She looked at her Father, who was leant back, his eyes closed, the UNIT Top Secret File on his lap.

“Ah. You're awake my dear. We're nearly there. Another hour.”

“I thought you were asleep too.”

“Merely resting my eyes and thinking. You've slept almost nine hours. I expect you need the bathroom?”

“Please.”

She followed her Father down the aisle, seeing mostly brown faces in bright coloured clothes. She liked the Indian women and girl clothes much better than the British ones, although some young Indian women seemed to be wearing flares and nylon kaftans or blouses not saris or pyjama kurtas. The men were mostly in western polyester suits with flared trousers, but older ones wore plain brown, beige, or grey traditional clothing. A group of white hippies were sat opposite the toilet and a women gave Sanjiandrovanri a smile and handed her a wilted flower. They smelt of stale cannabis resin and patchouli and it made her feel sick and made her want Cassandra Jones' Mum and Daddy at the same time. She vomited in the toilet first.

Her Father was chatting away to the hippies when she came out of the bathroom, but just then one of the glamorous air stewardesses announced it was time to strap in for descent.

“Hum,” her Father said. “Off key.”

So she did, she hummed and counted up in primes until they had landed, and this time her ears did not pop and if her tummy had flipped, she didn't notice.

*

It was sweltering when they exited the plane and walked across the tarmac to the airport. The Doctor had told her to wear the party dress and her sandals, so she had, with a cardigan, which she pulled off quickly. She looked at Father, who managed to look cool and relaxed in his velvet and frills, although he had left his cloak behind in the lab at UNIT HQ.

A man who looked very like a brown version of the Brigadier in a sand coloured rather than army green uniform started to cross the tarmac towards them. He had an even more impression moustache and even had the same swagger stick which he was swishing as he marched to them.

“Doctor? I am Brigadier Palani Chandiramani. It was good of Lethbridge Stewart to spare you. You have read the files from Geneva?” He held out his hand, smiling beneath his very big moustache, before looking down curiously at the little girl.

The Doctor shook the soldier's hand, smiling back. “Yes, I have. Fascinating. Power outages, missing food, missing person. This is my daughter, last minute change of plans, I decided to bring her. She won't get in the way, I assure you.”

The new Brigadier squatted down to her eye level. “It is good to meet you Miss Doctor. What is your name?”

“Sanjiandrovanri.”

“Sanjiandrovanri is a splendid name, very pretty. Come this way, both of you. We'll take some tea and then drive. It is a long drive, I am afraid, little one. Perhaps we should stop in the market for a few provisions. Doctor, please do not be offended, but my boys are at school, and their ayah is still in my service, idling her time at the house, sewing. It would be my honour to lend her services for your little one's care.”

An ayah was a nurse. The new Brigadier could pronounce her name without blinking. She thought she might like India, despite the heat and heavy humidity.

The Doctor and she were waved through immigration and customs by a letter from Geneva with a UN stamp and came out of the airport into a hustle and bustle of people, taxis, small vehicles pulled by men on cycles, and carts pulled by donkeys and bullocks. There was so much to see, so much colour, so many smells, it was overwhelming. They followed the UNIT officer to a cart, where a man was selling tea. Chandiramani ordered 3 teas, one cooled with cold extra milk for the child, and then excused himself and went to some other carts and stands, returning with some items wrapped in linen and greaseproof papers.

The tea when it came was hot, spicy, very, very sweet and made with lots of milk. Sanjiandrovanri loved it. The new Brigadier unwrapped the greaseproof paper and offered her a selection of brightly coloured items in cubes and balls.

“Barfi. Sweetmeats, you know,” he said, smiling. His voice was even posher English than the Brigadier, even more privileged, whether he spoke English to them, or Hindi to the locals. Of course, the TARDIS translated both, and Sanjiandrovanri had noticed she had a quirk with her translation matrix, just as she did with many other things. Still, Father did steal her from a museum. She selected a pink cube and took a small bite. Sugar and condescended milk and nuttiness all burst on her tongue. It was wonderful. Cassandra Jones' parents took their children to multicultural events in the town to foster community relations and raise money for the anti racist group they ran, but she had not tasted anything like this, only curry and samosas and pakoris. Perhaps they didn't make them in England?

“This is gorgeous. Thank you Sir.”

“Please, call me Uncle Palani,” he smiled down at her. “And you are very welcome little missy Now, have you finished your tea? The jeep is this way.”

 

*

 

The journey out of the city had been fascinating, the mix of ancient buildings, British colonial ones, and modern concrete ones, the bustle of people, the bright colours of the clothes, the mix of ancient and modern, the strange vehicles on the roads, the shops and stalls and smells. There had been the dark side, too, that extreme poverty was obvious her, that children held out their hands to beg at every red light and junction. Father gave sweets and coins to each and every child, despite the new Brigadier telling him you couldn't help everyone. He also, if they were stopped long enough, did simple magic tricks like pull hankies or artificial flowers out from his sleeves or the coins and sweets from their ears. The dirty children smiled at him and thanked him and she squirmed with a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

The jeep picked up speed as it left the city, kicking up dust, and climbing higher, until Sanjiandrovanri could look back and see it in the distance, a tiny city of lights in the valley. Ahead were snow capped peaks of far away mountains, with fields of green in-between. The road was empty, apart from the occasional lorry, painted and decorated so beautifully, it could have been a mobile temple. She sat in the back with the luggage and the canteen of water, which she managed to sneak the odd sip of water, without spilling too much. It was so hot and humid, the water soon evaporated anyway.

In the front the Doctor and Brigadier Chandiramani talked of yetis and power outages and how yetis the Doctor had previously met did not eat, being crude robots under telepathic control, so the butcher's meat and people's chickens and goats being stolen did not make sense. If they were yetis, which he doubted, as there was also the radiation being detected and the power drains from the village generators and the boarder garrison's one. 'Uncle Palani' thought that they could be real yetis, that sometimes myths could be proven true.

She didn't really pay much attention, as they higher they climbed, the cooler it became, and the smell of the tea bushes and jasmine blossoms were intoxicating. She put her cardigan back on, pulled out her soft toys from her bag, curled up, and went to sleep.

 

*

 

She woke up to the jeep stopping. It was dark, but there were fires and electric or battery powered lights along with parked up decorated lorries and a big bus full of elderly people dressed mostly in white, along with a couple of wooden shacks and a concrete hut.

“Are we here Father?”

“No my dear. This is the equivalent of a service station, Chandiramani needs a break. I offered to drive, but he said it was against regulations.”

“I need to... um... go Father!”

“Come on then, climb out.”

The elderly people from the battered, painted, bus, were sitting around the fire, singing religious songs and clapping their hands to make a rhythm while some of the women were cooking some daal in a big pot suspended over the fire. The lorry drivers stood watching, smoking very strong smelling cigarettes. A couple of white hippies sat on the ground in front of one of the lorries, wrapped in a dirty blanket. They looked as if they had been sedated by a drug.

One of the huts had the universal symbols for men and women's toilets. “Um, ah, yes,” her Father said, putting one hand on the back of his neck. “Very gender striated society. We have a problem.”

Sanji looked up at him, horrified, and began to hop up and down, holding her hands between her legs. Perhaps she shouldn't have drunk all that water after the tea.

“Does the little one need to relieve herself?” a voice said, coming out of the dark.

An elderly human woman walked up to them, leaning on her sticks.

“Oh?” the Doctor said, seemingly startled. “Yes. Honoured grandmother, would you help my daughter please?”

Sanjiandrovanri didn't know what dialect the TARDIS was translating so clunkily, nor did she care, she just took the old lady's hand and let herself be led into the toilet. She stared, aghast and confused, at the hole in the ground with two metal footplates either side.

“How do I...?”

The old woman laughed and pinched her cheek. “Is it not like that in your country. You lift up your skirt, put your feet there and there and squat. Come, you are so little I will hold you so you don't fall!”

“Do children fall in the toilet?”

“Sometimes!” laughed the old lady.

It was embarrassing, but she had to go. It felt like her urine flow would never stop. The kind lady poured some clean water over her privates when she had finished and helped her get up from her squatting position.

Earth is so fascinatingly diverse, it is like travelling the universe on one planet!

Who had said that? Papa, Father, or Uncle Brax? One of them. Not Ushas, she thought humans no better or interesting than sheep.

Beautiful tiled bathrooms with bidets and sunken baths you could swim in. Sanji felt rocked by a sudden wave of home sickness.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, putting his hands together and bowing his head.

“My pleasure. You little daughter was no trouble.” She smiled again, and the light of the lorries and the fire showed all her wrinkles and missing teeth. She pinched Sanjiandrovanri cheek again and grinned even wider. “Your Nepali is very good Sir.”

“I have a gift with languages,” the Doctor replied, shrugging.

“And your daughter has inherited it. Do you go far?”

“We're yeti hunting.”

“You are a little south yet for yetis. I hear there are new ones on the borders, ones who steal goats and chickens.”

“Yes, they are the ones. What do you know, grandmother?”

Sanji wandered off, back to the jeep, she was cold, and let her Father quiz the woman on yetis, although it seemed to her, he was the one listening more to her tales of pilgrimage to the source of the Great Mother.

Brigadier Chandiramani was back at the jeep when she arrived. He was eating chappati and daal and drinking more tea.

“You are awake then little one? Where is your Father?”

“He is talking to the pilgrims about yetis.” For as she had wandered off, the Doctor and the elderly lady had gone in the opposite direction, to the fire and the other pilgrims.

“Ah. Useful?”

“I have no idea,” she said, eyeing his chappati.

The new Brigadier laughed heartily. “Hungry Sanjiandrovanri?”

“Yes please.”

By the time the Doctor returned, Sanji had eat daal, chappati, samosa and more barfi, all washed down with sweet, spicy, milky tea; washed and brushed her teeth with the water from the canteen, and curled back up under a blanket with her toys in the back of the jeep while Chandiramani told her stories about a god called Krishna, a child-like prankster god surrounded by women acolytes who stole butter as a child, as far as she could tell.

Oneness and universality, Krishna had the whole universe inside him, time and timeless, the wheel of time span eternality, and all one needed to escape the endless rebirth was to stand outside time....

Or something. It muddled in her head, the background beliefs among the stories of one avatar of one god, although all gods were many and one, aspects of the same...

Rebirth and regeneration, nirvana and matrix, light and dark, struggle and acceptance.

Many truths, one truth...

Sanji was growing to love xeno-religious studies.

She was half-asleep, half-mulling over philosophy and theology, along with myth and legend, when the Doctor climbed in the back with her, pulling her head on his lap so she would sleep more comfortably.

“Are you Krishna?” she mumbled in her sleep.

“I don't think so. I don't usually go around pretending to be a god, I leave that to your Papa,” he replied, worried. But she was too far asleep to hear him, or even consciously know she asked the question. “If I will be, I dread to think of the circumstances...” he added, more to himself.


	22. Ayah

Sanjiandrovanri awoke to the sounds of strange birds singing, and the sounds of someone human also singing as they swept, she could hear the beat of the broom on the floor as it moved the dust. She was lying on something soft, and dressed in her shirt-nightie, an old shirt of her father's with the sleeves cut off, and her toys were next to her, she could feel their fluffiness among the soft cotton and feather down. She opened an eye and saw wooden slatted shutters over tiny squares with the sun streaming through. She opened the other and sat up. 

She was in a small, square, room, in a dark wooden bed with flowery bedding. Four small windows were covered by shutters, and a mahogany chest sat underneath them with her bag and cardigan placed on top of it. A small night stand of the same wood was beside her bed, covered with a beaded mat, with a small metal pitcher covered with a linen cloth weighted with four red beads stood on top if it. A small metal beaker stood next to it. She lifted the cloth, sniffed, and quickly poured herself a glass of water and drank greedily.

Where was she? Where was Father?

She slipped out of bed and headed for the door, which was opposite the window.

An elderly women in a white sari was outside, sweeping the floor. It was she who was singing. She stopped and smiled at Sanjiandrovanri and grinned a toothless smile.

“Hello little Miss,” she said, putting her hands together.

Sanji copied. “Hello. Where am I? Where's my Father?”

“ I will fetch Ayah,” the women said, scuttling away.

The corridor was dark and narrow, with slatted wooden windows here and there, wall hangings with scenes with blue skinned people talking to brown ones, a statue of a elephant headed blue man stood on a stand. There were also several paintings of mandalas, beautiful geometric designs of the Vortex or perhaps a cruder time corridor. She walked past several rooms, some bedrooms, one a study, or perhaps a classroom, with a big table in the middle for the room, with an ink stand and blotter, and the walls lined with bookcases, a revolving blackboard in one corner. Another that looked like a playroom, with soft, low, velvet sofas, a rocking horse, a Subbeteo table and Scalextric set up on two low tables pushed together, a dart board hung on the far wall. Several soft toys sat forlornly in a box by one of the sofas, a box of matchbox cars, and one of Lego, next to the other. She wanted to go in and play with the cars and give the bears and elephants and tigers a hug, but knew that would be a breach of propriety, she had not been invited.

Uncle Braxiatel had taken her to the ruins of old Prydonia one Otherstide, and they had gone to the museum reconstruction, and an ancient nursery had looked quite like this, it had purported to be The Nursery of Rassilon, and the playroom had been full of engineering and construction toys. This place reminded her a little of that – the dark wood, the shutters, even the mandalas. 

As she stepped out of the playroom, a young woman in a shiny blue sari and blue glass bangles was hurrying down the corridor.

“You are awake Miss Sanjiandrovanri. I am Priti, your Ayah while your father advises my employer. Are you hungry?”

“Where is my Father?” Sanji asked, pulling herself upwards to her full, rather tiny, height, and holding her head up. It was a long time since she had a Nurse. She had had three in the first three years of her life, the first one left as she did not like the way Papa and Father fought, the other two because Father made them frustrated and/or angry. All had reported her fathers to the Children's Coordinator, she had heard her Father complain so to her big sister Hypatia, who had sniffily replied that she wasn't surprised, that she and Portia had been too, and she had no idea how her parents had been given permission for use of a genetic loom again. She had then seen her tiny sister stood in the doorway and blushed.

“The Doctor and the Brigadier dropped you and continued to the military base, further up the mountains. Come, let us get you something to eat. You can play later. I'm afraid all the toys are boys toys, there are no dolls.”

“I like Lego. Is there a train set? I like trains.”

“Only the cars, both boys are car mad. Zoom zoom zoom, all day.”

A little human emotion leaked out, as they did at times, transmitting their emotions unguardedly, so Sanji said softly, “You must miss them when they are at school.”

“Like an ache, like they were my own. But Mr Chandiramani is so kind to keep me on. You are a very clever and kind girl to ask. Come, I do not know what English girls like for breakfast, but will you try some puri?”

Puri turned out to be deep-fried flat bread stuffed with spicy fillings, served with pickles, yoghurt, and more of the lovely, milky, sweet, chai.

The Ayah was lovely, she taught Sanjiandrovanri lots about the Hindu beliefs, legends, and myths, some reminded her of the fairy tales of her favourite book as a tiny Time Tot, some of stories of her Father that the ornamental Hermit of their Lungbarrow Family home had told him. She began then to think that there were echoes, universal truths, that repeated throughout all of time and space, that the stories held some kind of truth. Even at nine, she knew these were heretical thoughts for a Time Lady, so kept them to herself.

Ayah also fed her four times a day, sang lovely songs, taught her how to sew, took her to the market and bought her beautiful, shiny, brightly coloured shawar kameezes and plastic sandals which were much better in the heat and humidity. She made her a rag doll and Sanjiandrovanri tried hard to make tiny clothes for her. Teddy, Tatty Bear, Doggie, and Rabbit were dubious of their new, female, companion, but Sanji didn't care, Dolly was part of her Family too now.

All the time, there was the slight buzzing at the back of her mind. On the third night, once Ayah had sung to her and told her a story about Rama and Sita and a many headed demon, it was very loud.

It was singing.

Telepathic singing.

It was a song so sad, so lonely, which spoke of loss and home and separation. It made her think of Gallifrey, of the Lady Hoolie, of Uncle Brax and Ushas and even her sisters and niece and nephew. Of going to the Academy. Of mountains and plains and the outlands, of the Capitol and Prydonia and Arcadia.

It also made her think of snowier mountains, of unknown shining cities in the peaks and gold fields for hunting in the plains, of the prey, huge antelope and buffalo type creatures roaming the plains in herds of thousands. Of pagoda temples and tall towers and aliens of all kinds coming to study and trade and welcomed with love and respect of the universe's diversity. Of a ship that sang, that flew through interstitial space at the speed of thought, the whole crew, a family, who sang in unison in telepathic song.

“I need to see Father and Brigadier Chandiramani,” she announced the following morning over fried potatoes in spices with chappatis.

“Your Father is busy,” Ayah said gently. 

“This is about what Father is doing. I had... a dream. About the Yeti. Do you know what your Master is doing?” she asked imperiously.

Ayah looked hard at the little girl. “I guess some, more than I am supposed to. Especially you. I think you are as not of this world as the evil creatures they hunt. But that is no excuse for being rude, Miss Sanjiandrovanri!”

“I am sorry Ayah, I really don't mean to be rude! But they are not evil, they are lost! We must help them get home!”

“You saw this in a dream?”

“I hear them sing in my mind. Please. If this Brigadier is like our one in England, he will want to shoot them!”

Ayah stared a full minute, before saying, “Eat your breakfast, I will go phone Mr. Chandiramani and ask if you can speak to your Father.”

“Thank you Ayah,” Sanjiandrovanri said stiffly.

“What a funny child you are, a human child would hug me!”

“Would you like a hug?”

“Would you?”

“Yes please,” the little Time Tot replied, happily being enfolded in folds of silk and smells of spices and perfume.

 

*

 

To distract the child, now very anxious and worried, Priti took her to the temple, she had shown such interest in religion. She showed her how to make puja and offerings, before they explored the street markets. It was a fast day for Priti, so she fed the little girl street food, watching her face smile wide at each taste. When they got back, her employers jeep was in the driveway.

“Your father is here,” she said, watching the child skip up the path and into the house.

 

*

“Father!” Sanjiandrovanri yelled, bursting into the main part of the house, the other side to the nursery, where she spent most of the time. The Ayah had given her a tour on the first day.

“Hello, my dear. The Ayah had been concerned about your dreams?” the Doctor said, smiling widely at his youngest.

“They are not my dreams! Can't you feel them?” Sanji hurriedly climbed on her father's lap and touched his temple. “Contact!” she almost shouted, verbally and telepathically.

The Doctor winced in pain. He was also annoyed, one didn't like to show the humans how alien one truly was.

After the brief contact, where Sanjiandrovanri shared her experiences, which the Doctor struggled to unpick the meaning of and needed to ponder on them, he blustered and apologised to the Indian Brigadier and fumbled through an explanation of telepathy for him that minimised and dumbed it down. He could see why Sanjiandrovanri had no idea why he would do this, and she demanded of him why he wasn't listening,

“It's just a dream my dear. Why don't you run along now, and find the Ayah. I apologise for bring you down, my dear fellow,” he said, lifting her off his lap and sending her on her way with a little pat. 

“Not a problem, dear boy. I needed to phone Geneva, anyway, keep them apprised,” Chandiramani replied, shrewdly looking at the Doctor with calculating eyes, which the Doctor noticed.

“You never listen!” his daughter shouted from the doorway, with a stamp of her food.

“Enough, or you will have a smacked bottom!”

Sanjiandrovanri yelled out her frustration before stomping off out of the study.

“I'm sorry.”

“It is fine. Children process things differently, and she must miss her home. I have worked with enough refugees before I became a UNIT officer to know homesickness and trauma, think nothing of it? Tell me what she thinks she is seeing?”

The Doctor sighed. He wasn't sure, and didn't want to share it. “She imagines the aliens are communicating with her, but I think she is just dreaming.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why would they contact a child twelve miles down the mountain, rather than me, if they were telepathic?”

“Point taken. Shall I order us some tiffin and chai?”

“My dear Brigadier, that sounds like a wonderful idea,” the Doctor replied, hoping all this talk of telepathy was at an end. With humans it was always scary and mystical, with other Time Lords he always felt a bit inadequate. His daughter obviously had Koschei's esper rating, and that might be something he needed to consider. Perhaps she should go home and to the Academy?


	23. Captured and Betrayed

Sanjiandrovanri was awoken by her father gently shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw him put his finger to his lips in the moonlight.

 

“What Father?”

 

“Can you feel them now?”

 

“Even louder. A song of sadness and home. Oh Father, it makes me want to cry. I feel it too.”

 

“Can you focus, track it for me?”

 

“What?”

 

“If we drive up the mountain, can you tell me if we get nearer or further away?”

 

Sanjiandrovanri remembered playing a guessing game when she had been Cassandra Jones, that involved saying warmer or colder as you got near or far the hidden thing, or guessed a guess that gave a clue. “Hot or cold, shall I say?” she said, holding her head and grabbing one of her soft toys. It was like an army of people crying in her head, it made her so sad. She was surprised when her Father put his finger to her cheek and wiped away a tear.

 

“Are they hurting you my dear?”

 

“Not hurting, not really...”

 

“Get dressed, and put on your cardigan, it will be chilly in the night air.”

 

She quickly pulled off her nightie the Ayah had brought her, and pulled on the pyjama kurta in green satin, also bought for her in the markets. She slipped on her new sandals and pulled on the cardigan, and then began to start shoving new and old clothes, her books, and her soft toys into her small backpack, it being bigger on the inside, of course. All bags from home were.

 

“No time for that now, you can get your things when we come back.”

 

Having been pushed around from place to place, person to person, since the Doctor had left with Susan, until her Uncle turned her into a human infant, and carrying the double need for security from the abused human version of herself too, she just carried on packing.

 

“Sanji. Leave them.”

 

“No!”

 

The Doctor sighed, crossed his arms, and tapped his fingers on his arm.

 

“I don't know when or if we'll come back. You disappear, I could disappear with you,” she explained, kissing each toy as they went in last. She put the backpack onto her back and smiled. “Ready Father.”

 

He smiled thinly, then bent down and scooped up the tiny child, carrying her on his hip, and crept out of the bungalow and across the driveway to the jeep he had arrived in.

 

“Isn't this Brigadier Chandiramani's car?” his daughter asked, surprised and confused, “Isn't he coming too?”

 

“They are crying and lost, you say? Don't you think we ought to leave UNIT out of this, they will only shoot first.”

 

The little Time Tot took this on board, she had already thought as much herself, and was glad her Father agreed, it must have been why he pretended she was only dreaming. She looked up at him, slowly nodding solemnly. That was probably very true, they both were very likely correct. Humans could be violent, suspicious, and xenophobic. They didn't even like each other, and killed each other enough. It was something she couldn't even figure out when she had been a human child.

 

 

*

 

 

They drove up the mountain, the full moon shining on the snow capped peaks, it getting cooler and less humid, almost like an English summer. The song of sadness increased in strength, and Sanji began to unpick individuals and words.

 

_~hunger~_

 

_~we require sustenance~_

 

_~send the forage party~_

 

_~must look for heavy water~_

 

_~communications requires lithium and silicon. Look too~_

 

_~we go, but there is none~_

 

The jeep turned a corner, the mountain loomed above them, and the words vanished, and the song of homesickness began again.

 

“Wrong way Father, up there!” she called, pointing up the rock face.

 

“The road may turn back, tell me when we are close again, Sanji dear.”

 

 

*

 

They continued to go away from the words for some while, before she caught some again.

 

_~hunt~_

 

_~smell the blood on the wind~_

 

_~meat~_

 

_~good hunting~_

 

“Up there! Father! Up there!”

 

Where she pointed was off the dirt track, and into the trees. Eventually they had to abandon the jeep and climb up the steep, wooden slope, the Doctor producing a torch from his pocket to light their way in the increasingly dark undergrowth.

 

Suddenly they heard a loud growl that was not translated, despite the feeling they both had it was a sentient sound. One by one creatures stepped out from the trees. The Doctor shoved his little companion behind his back and smiled, waving a hand.

 

“Hello. Good evening. I'm the Doctor. I believe you must be lost?”

 

There were four of them, all at least seven feet tall, with long white or off white fur. They all wore some form of unity harness and belts, and sturdy boots, but otherwise were quite naked, but completely covered by the long fur.

 

The shortest, with grey fur at her snout and ears, growled again, stepping forward.

 

“Slowly. I don't quite follow you,” the Doctor said.

 

The two younger males grabbed hold of the Doctor by his arms and pulled him forward and away from Sanjiandrovanri. The older female stepped forward and brushed a piece of her short hair away from her face.

 

_~you hear me little offspring?~_

 

“Yes. I am the Lady Sanjiandrovanri of the House of Lungbarrow. I used to be from the noble House of Oakdown, but...”

 

The Doctor watched, alarmed as he heard only one side of a conversation that this very alien creature was having with his daughter, torn with a gentle paternal need to protect her from the creature, and a much more desperate need to know what they were, what planet they came from, how they crashed here, what their culture was, whether they were violent or gently, how he could help, and a little jealously that his daughter could 'hear' them and he couldn't. He had always had rather low telepathy, unlike his spouse's very high psychic abilities. Susan too had been able to sense psychic activity and communicate with telepathic species better than he.

 

“Oh Gallifrey, but I'm sort of stuck here, my Uncle made a mistake. My Father is exiled here though,” the child was babbling.

 

“Time Lords. Yes. But he can't take you anywhere. Exiled, I said. But he works with humans.”

 

“Oh, okay then!” she suddenly said, alarmed, as the female leader grabbed her arm. Apart from the elder male, who continued down the mountain, towards the village they had driven through on their way up, they were all marched up the mountain further, beyond the tree line, to a rocky outcrop under a rocky overhang.

 

They passed through a slight distortion, the Doctor realising that is was a shield for their ship, and they entered their spaceship. They walked up a metal grated ramp and into a metallic green corridor. They arrived in what he assumed to be the bridge, although there was no command deck or main console, just a circular room in gold with instrumentation around the walls and soft seating forming an inner circle. Three more creatures came forward. They made clicks and snarls, purrs and growls, and although the TARDIS did not translate for him, he knew they were speaking, he could sense some form of telepathic communication and connection running through and across the individuals too, but all he could sense was song and sadness, presumably what his daughter senses some ten miles away. He daughter was sat on the soft, padded bench, and the others also touched her forehead.

 

“No! I want to stay with Father!” she cried.

 

“Alright. I understand,” she said sadly.

 

The female in charge pointed to him, and all of them led him and his young companion deeper into the ship, to what looked like animal pens, or what smelt very like them. The matriarch or whatever she was, once he had been secured in a pen with chains to his hands, held his daughter by her shoulders in front of him.

 

“They want me to speak for them Doctor,” she said.

 

He felt a wrench as she called him by his name, but he understood she was not happy with them.

 

“I'm listening,” he said, looking at their leader over the top of his daughter's head. He looked down and smiled. “Go ahead, don't be afraid, my dear girl.”

 

Her voice took on a sing-song, chanting quality, and became clearer and even higher than her normal child-voice, aspect, as her vocal cords gave confused, approximate words to the telepathic more detailed information of the alien commander, “We are called the Rey'ahxzi.  We were journeying to the new hunting grounds on our third colony. The young sons must come of age. We are called off the flight path. A new song is born and we follow. We hear the call of the Auton by accident. The Auton are evil. But we do not use plastic, it harms the environments and stops the hunt. We know it is the Auton too late. We crash – here. The local sentients are primitive and superstitious and fearful. They send warriors. We hunt for food but we do not fight sentient beings. It is against our way. You are alien to this world too. The child tells us you work with the warriors and can control them. We require help, that is all. We require 19 gallons of heavy water, two ounces of lithium and three of silicon. We also require at least four large or eight smaller food animals for the journey. You will go now to your vehicle and fetch all this. We keep your offspring as assurance –” Sanjiandrovanri broke off, looking terrified, then yelled, “Father! I don't want to... No, I'm sorry,” she then said, calming herself, twisting around to look at the Matriarch/Commander, who stroked her hair tenderly, as Sanji again voiced her thoughts, 

 

“Your offspring will not be harmed, but she remains until you bring all we need to launch and continue our journey to the new hunting grounds. We apologies, but these sentients of this planet are violent and primitive.”

 

“I will gladly assist you Madam,” the Doctor replied, bowing. “But may I ask for two assurance too?”

 

“She says to ask, Doctor.”

 

“Firstly, a tourist has gone missing on this mountain, were you responsible?”

 

“A pale pink creature, like you, not beige like the locals, stumbled through our force field. He had already harmed his mind through choosing harmful herbs and chemicals, we merely keep him safe until we leave. We do not want him speaking to the warriors or villagers and bringing danger.”

 

“You will release him with my daughter?”

 

“Yes. Secondly?”

 

“My daughter will not be harmed?”

 

“No.”

 

“Nor penned here, as you have me?”

 

“She is a child, and will remain with us, she will not be harmed nor chained as an animal. You look like the males of this planet, we take no chances. We observe they are aggressive and territorial. The one will already hold is unthreatening alone as it sedated itself. However, even though you are not of this planet, the universe sings of one called Doctor, The Destroyer of Worlds, for all we know, you could be that one.”

 

The Doctor swallowed, he certainly wasn't the Destroyer of Worlds, but he might be, one day, not a nice thought, he must forget it. He bowed. “Madam, I will do as you ask and bring all you require.”

 

“We will escort you,” the elder female indicated the two young males undo his fetters and escort him out. He quickly pushed them off and ran to Sanjiandrovanri, who looked about to faint, from the alien female taking over her voice. He hugged her, kissed her cheek, and lay her down on the straw. “I'll be back as soon as I can, Sanji-ana.”

 

 

*

 

Once the Doctor had left, the leader handed the small Time Tot over to the other, much younger, female, who led her to the back of the ship, to the sleeping quarters.

 

_~wait here. Call me if you need sustenance. I am known as X'xlincadi~_

 

Shaking on the inside, terrified and desperate not to show it, the little girl nodded and tried to smile. She told herself she had been in more terrifying situations, both as herself and as human Cassie. She had felt sick with fear and uncertainty when she finally realised her Father was not coming back and her Papa was no longer even a person, and was thrown into a historical, almost mythical, oubliette. She's felt almost the same fear as she sat under a table in Ushas's laboratory as the Capitol fell to ruins above her head and she knew it was Ushas's fault. Three people she loved who were gone, and not allowed to be spoken off, as if they didn't exist. She'd felt fear when Uncle Braxiatel had woken her and led her through the walkways of the Citadel and then told her Papa had escaped, and a moment of utter terror as the Chameleon Arch began to rewrite and wipe all that she was. Cassandra had felt such fear day in, day out, even when she forgot the fear as she watched TV, read, or studied at school, it was somehow still ever-present. When her Grandfather did what he did to her, every horrible thing he did or made her do, all the threats to kill her and her family and her dog if she told, all the times he made her believe not one adult would believe her or would think it her fault and wanted it and would put her in prison for being so dirty and nasty. Fear had been Cassandra's constant companion from such a small age, about the same age utter abandonment and loneliness had been Sanjiandrovanri's constant companion.

 

Sanjiandrovanri did not fear the Rey'ahxzi. But she did fear her Father leaving her here, or even letting the Indian Brigadier and his UNIT troops blow up this small, flimsy, ship, meant for interstitial and not space travel.

 

She stepped further inside. There were soft, large, squashy, circular sleeping mats in three of the corners, and an oval entertainment console on the wall, along with a circular table with a jug of water and metal cups, all slightly larger than one would find on Earth or Gallifrey. She gasped and clutched her bag straps over her shoulders as a creature stirred in the furthest sleeping place.

 

“Hello? Can I go now? Oh man, a little girl. Hey girly, I won't hurt you. Did the aliens get you too? They sure look and sound scary, but they're not so bad. Food's a bit sameish, roasted meats, but it's okay. They don't hurt you. I call them the Wookie, coz that's like the gentlest noise they make. Don't be scared.” He was a young adult, maybe an older teenager, in dirty hippie clothes and matted long hair, with white skin. He spoke with an American accent.

 

“I'm not scared of the Rey'ahxzi. They are carnivores, not omnivores, they have no choice but to eat meat.”

 

“Hey, pompous little savant, is that what you decided to call them, the Rey... whatever?”

 

“I call them that because that is what they are.” She took a step back and let go of the backpack straps and hugged herself.

 

“Oh? You're scared of me. Baby girl, I won't hurt you.”

 

“How do I know?” Sanji blurted out without thinking.

 

“Look. My name's George. I'm travelling about India and Europe, I've taken a year out of school. I was filming the people in the village, I'm at film school. My girlfriend is down in the village with my cameras. You look white, are you on holiday? What's your name? Where are you from? I swear I'm nice, I won't hurt you.”

 

“My name is Sanjiandrovanri. My father came out to advise the soldiers about what the aliens are doing. He's gone to get them what they need to repair their ship.”

 

“Sanji... what? Your name sure sounds as complex as some of these Indian ones.”

 

Sanjiandrovanri sighed and came into the room, sitting down on the sleeping mat opposite George's, as far as she could get in her room. She had a penknife in her backpack somewhere, Sergeant Benson had given it to her. She fished out Doggie and secretly the knife. “I'm going to sleep,” she announced, taking out her other toys and laying them around her, knife still securely in her hand. She had no idea why she didn't feel safe with the man, she was sure he was as nice as he said, it was just, having had the Matriarch in her head earlier, and remembering Cassandra's fears, she felt that male humans were the real monsters.

 

“Okay. Would you like me to tell you a story? I've been writing these sci fi stories in my head for years. One day I'm gonna make a movie, maybe lots of movies. But I never guessed aliens were real.” There was an uncertain pause “You wanna hear my story?”

 

Sanji thought about it. It would take her mind of the worry that Father would not come back, or come back with armed men. Although the Doctor had pulled her out of sleep and she was very tired, the psychic exhaustion alone of having someone direct her voice meant she was desperate for sleep, but still she did not think she would sleep easily. “That might be nice. And you can call me Sanji.”

 

“Sure, okay Sanji. And you remember you heard the stories first, one day they might be famous. I'm George Lucus, you remember my name, okay?”

 

Sanjiandrovanri snuggled down into the soft downy sleeping mat, pulled her toys about her, let the knife slip through her fingers and closed her eyes. “Alright George, tell me your stories please.”

 

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...”

 

 

*

 

 

After three days, Sanji was completely immersed in George's rather violent imaginary universe. Perhaps the 'galaxy far far away' was real, perhaps in a sub metaphysical, subconscious, level the entire of time and space were connected and interconnected. The Lady Hoolie used to tell tales of before the Dark times, of the Old Time, of the Pythia and the Gallifreyans who travelled in space but not time, whose time sensitivities were for telepathy, dreams, and predictions only. Stories of the Time Before were her favourite lessons. Father thought them amusing fairy stories, and Papa wanted her to concentrate on maths and physics.

 

She had missed so much, almost five years of Kindergarten, and would be going to the Academy a year late. Probably. She was nine, thereabouts. But then, she had lived sixteen years, seven Gallifreyan ones and nine Terran ones. How old was she? And would she be nearly 300 years out of time, or would time travel be permitted under the Transduction barrier to get her back to her right time?

 

These thoughts went through her head often, the room was small, and the young female Rey'ahxza, X'xlincadi, who brought their food and water to wash with twice a day, did not stay long, looking at George with suspicion and petting her hair and apologising again as she had to answer in the negative to the endless question:

 

“Has my Father come yet? Where is the Doctor?”

 

George's stories had lots of very active men, sort of knight-priests and smugglers and dark wizards and young orphan heroes, the stuff of the usual human fantasy and science fiction. He had no understanding of FTL travel or time differentials, but he did not let that bother him. He invented aliens, he invented one for her, based on her teddy bears, and one he was working on, he based on the Rey'ahxzi, only dark furred. He recreated their roars, and did not listen when she explained they were telepathic, the sounds were just sounds, the kind of monkey noises a frustrated human might make or the hiss a reptilian Draconian might let out. There was only one woman in his story, a princess, who got captured a lot. And lots of robots, he called droids. She tried to explain that droid was short for android, from the Greek, meaning man-like, a robot looking like a human. Some of his robots did, some were small and cute. They bleeped. Bleeping machines were annoying, but as they weren't invented yet here, she supposed he didn't know that. When she moaned about only one female character, he made up another princess, who was going to be the mother of the princess he already had. Since she died in childbirth, they didn't get to talk to each other even!

 

Still, space battles and magic light sword battles and so on kept away the boredom. When he didn't tell her stories, she read him her Famous Five. He was an American, and had never heard of Enid Blyton. She had to explain ass meant a donkey, the children weren't swearing, just saying the other child was being a bit silly or stubborn,like a donkey. He'd been a bit shocked when Julian had called his little sister one. He seemed to like the drug smuggling aspect though.

 

The Rey'ahxzi gave them roasted meats twice a day – chicken, or goat, or mutton. And water to drink. Slowly they went through her supply of apples, dried fruits, and barfi until they had no choice but to eat the meat alone. George made a crude joke about being bunged up and being thankful, as the facilities were basic. Sanji ate to live, the hunger of the day Papa was arrested and Father ran away and her sisters didn't feed her always haunted her, but they didn't eat meat on Gallifrey and Cassandra had been in a vegetarian family, and had refused to do anything but push the Sunday joint about her plate and have her grandparents tell her off on the days they came and her parents – her mother – was too afraid to let her parents know she was a vegetarian. She wondered about them now, they thought their daughter had been killed by a criminal.

 

In a way, she had been.

 

At night, she dreamt of Papa, with the knife, and pushing her back on the ground and dematerialising in front of her, after promising to take her with him. She dreamt of Father's retreating back outside the Kindergarten too.

 

Why didn't he come back? How hard was it to get a couple of elements and some heavy water?

 

George was turning the chicken leg about in his hand as she turned, desperate to distract her.

 

“Are you crying?” he asked.

 

“No,” she sniffed.

 

“Will they ever let us out?” he asked, he asked it several times a day.

 

As she was a child, she felt it unfair he wanted reassurance from her. But since he realised she was also an alien, he tried to rely on her as much as he tried to adult her. She supposed he was like a big brother might be, if she had one. Perhaps she did? Her sisters would have regenerated by now.

 

“Shall I tell you more of the battle between the Rebel Alliance and the...”

 

“Will there be more genocide?” she demanded, irritated and afraid. It was now 78 hours since Father left. Since the Doctor left, promising to negotiate between the human army and the crashed Rey'ahxzi.

 

“What do you mean, genocide?”

 

“You keep blowing up planets and moons with sentient species on,” she pointed out.

 

“Yes, but that's not genocide, it will look good. In the cinema, when I make my movies!”

 

“Well, I suppose it is just a story,” Sanjiandrovanri conceded. “But don't you want your readers or viewers really feeling the story, being in the story. When I read I'm lost. I know children don't have adventures or fight adults or magical animals talk, but when I read it I believe it.”

 

“Willing suspension of disbelief, that's what that's called, Sanji.”

 

“That!” she snapped, irritably. “That, h'm? So then they believe in that galaxy, in those planets, in those peoples that you keep killing! If that was real my Father would stop the Sith and the Federation – so much genocide in one galaxy, it's evil!”

 

“It's a story about good and evil, dark and light, like all the good stories are.”

 

“I think it is too horrible, I'm sorry. It is good and I am sure people will like it, but there is a lot of killing and death. I suppose humans like death though.”

 

“Now, I think you are being rude...” George began, but the door opened and the Matriach and her daughter, X'xlincadi. They smiled with their minds and opened their arms and paws, retracting their claws.

 

_~ come now little one~_

 

_~tell the human male adolescent it is time to go~_

 

_ ~Father is here!~ “ _ Oh! Thank Rassilon, Omega, and the Other, and the dark heart of the Eye!”

 

“Is that cursing I hear?” the Doctor called, and he stuck his head around the door and came to stand beside X'xlincadi.

 

“Sorry! I'm sorry!” Sanji looked at the contents of her backpack and her father, torn between quickly packing to not lose anyone, her family and friends of her imagination, or hug her mostly absent Father. 

 

_ ~pack quickly~  _ X'xlincadi thought to her, sensing her turmoil _ . _

 

_ S _ he did so, checking she had all her toys and books and then went to her Father, who was talking to George, checking he was okay. They followed the Rey'ahxzi along metal corridors and out through the airlock. Three trucks and a jeep were parked nearby, and Indian soldiers and the male Rey'ahxzi had formed a chain to carry supplies to the ship from the trucks. A young white woman in flowing saffron and orange hippie attire leapt out of the jeep and ran to George.

 

“His girlfriend,” the Doctor remarked to his daughter, who still hadn't looked at him.

 

“H'm,” she said, nodding, and grabbed the straps of her backpack and strode off to the jeep and climbed in the back. “Thank you for rescuing me Brigadier Chandiramani. And George.”

 

“Did they harm you? Or the American?”

 

“He moaned about the diet making him constipated,” Sanjiandrovanri said, not sure why, at a loss for what to actually say.

 

“But they fed you?”

 

“We had their best guest quarters, it might not be what we are used to as humanoids, but it was their best, they did not hurt us Brigadier.”

 

“Good. I was all for coming straight back with all the UNIT forces I command, but the Doctor wanted to keep the peace, days it took him, on the phone to Geneva and Lethbridge Stewart.”

 

Sanjiandrovanri smiled at her Father as he climbed in the back with her. George and his girlfriend sat in the front. They dropped them at the village they were filming their documentary, making them sign papers to keep what happened a secret, papers that had the Seal of the US government as well as UNIT on them.

 

After that they drove down the mountain and headed straight back for the airport. They wouldn't stop at Chandiramani's house to say goodbye to the Ayah. This was too much, and Sanji cried herself to sleep in her Father's arms.

 

She woke to the sounds of dawn and the city. Her Father smiled at her. She looked away. She hated him and was proud of him and it all muddled. He'd saved some crashed aliens from human aggression. He'd got the Rey'ahxzi what they needed to repair their ship and food for their journey home. But he had walked away, been prepared to leave her as a hostage to his good intentions as he would have done to any of his human companions of his stories of his adventures from the day he ran to the day he was trialled and exiled to Earth. She was a child. A little Time Tot. Not yet at the Academy. Not yet looked into the Untempered Schism. His child!

 

And he had been prepared to sacrifice her. He was psi blind to them, they could have eaten her for all he knew, they could have been a vanguard of an invasion to Earth. He took the Matriarch's work relaid through her telepathy and had gone. For over three days.

 

She felt the same anxiety as she had that day at the Kindergarten, and the day Uncle Braxiatel had woken her in the night, the day she opened the watch and saw Papa, who held a knife to her throat...

 

Proud. Angry. Abandoned. Anxious. Too many big and contradictory emotions to handle.

 

She shut down.

 

They walked through the customs and immigration with a wave of the UNIT pass, walked out to the plane, climbed the steps and boarded it.

 

Shut down.

 

Alone.

 

Abandoned.

 

India tipped away, a tiny toy city and plains and mountains far below.

 

Shut down. Saviour of peoples, righter of wrongs, seeker of justice, fighter of evil...

 

Destroyer of the Worlds, the Rey'ahxzi had called him.

 

The Doctor.

 

Not Father.

 

Abandoned, unwanted, parenting and being and studying and observing not enough. She wanted to go home, go home. Home to Uncle Braxiatel's apartments and libraries, to lonely times in the children's rooms of libraries and bookshops... She wanted Ushas and the slight curl of the lip when she passed a test or passed a test tube... the memory of her own home, of Father the lawyer of the lower castes and Papa the Temporal Engineering Coordinator, of nurses who came and went, of rows and violence and anger, of broken housebots, of curled up in bed with the 'The Worshipful Tales of Gallifrey for Children' and her soft toys, her Doggie and her Teddy; a fuzzy memory of distant, confused feels and fears...

 

Unknown, she wept; silent, fat, tears sliding down her cheeks. If the Doctor noticed and felt stricken, responsible, guilty, and powerless to comfort, she did not know.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is based very very loosely on my first attempts at fan fiction as a small child back in the 1970s. I even made the exercise books look like Target covers at the time. Sad little girl I was. Then, back in the 1990s at the OU DWAS some male fans sort of stole her, made her adult, made her a renegade and an exile herself, gave her fics in zines...
> 
> This is me, reclaiming her for myself. Comments appreciated, but no flames.


End file.
